On Tuesday 08 April 2014 15:43:29 Alexandre wrote:

...

I have a client whose sound has suddenly died, after running well since the system was installed. (Six months?? A bit more?) The obvious explanations are user error (clicked something without realising) or dead hardware.

She is running Debian Wheezy with TDE 3.5.13.2 on an oldish Dell laptop. Since I haven't got the laptop here, I haven't got its specs. I cannot have the laptop to work on for the moment, since she is using it a lot for now.

All suggestions or explanations welcomed, Lisi

Hi Lisi,

At first, I think that checking that all of the on/off check boxes in Kmix is a good option. Then, some laptops has a function keys, on the same keys as F1, F..., where you can press FN+ (the mute button) to turn on or off the sound. On some lappies, these keys are driven by the software (in linux), or on older lappies, it is directly controlled by the hardware, which is more multi-platform friendly. Also, does the laptop has a hardware volume control, probably on the side of it?

Then, if none of these works, I'd test the computer with a livecd, which is know to support the sound chip of this computer and play a sound file.

Running ''alsaconf'' form Konsole, as a root user, is also good for reconfiguring the sound card, but I am not sure if this program is still included on linux distros of these years.

Good luck! -Alexandre

Thanks, Alexandre. Your help is much appreciated.

Lisi

On Tuesday 08 April 2014 16:38:02 Dsant wrote:

Le 08/04/2014 16:52, Lisi Reisz a écrit :

...

On Tuesday 08 April 2014 15:43:29 Alexandre wrote:

...

...

I have a client whose sound has suddenly died, after running well since the system was installed. (Six months?? A bit more?) The obvious explanations are user error (clicked something without realising) or dead hardware.

She is running Debian Wheezy with TDE 3.5.13.2 on an oldish Dell laptop. Since I haven't got the laptop here, I haven't got its specs. I cannot have the laptop to work on for the moment, since she is using it a lot for now.

All suggestions or explanations welcomed, Lisi

Hi Lisi,

At first, I think that checking that all of the on/off check boxes in Kmix is a good option. Then, some laptops has a function keys, on the same keys as F1, F..., where you can press FN+ (the mute button) to turn on or off the sound. On some lappies, these keys are driven by the software (in linux), or on older lappies, it is directly controlled by the hardware, which is more multi-platform friendly. Also, does the laptop has a hardware volume control, probably on the side of it?

Then, if none of these works, I'd test the computer with a livecd, which is know to support the sound chip of this computer and play a sound file.

Running ''alsaconf'' form Konsole, as a root user, is also good for reconfiguring the sound card, but I am not sure if this program is still included on linux distros of these years.

Good luck! -Alexandre

Thanks, Alexandre. Your help is much appreciated.

Lisi

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You should/could check (even on KDE, it helps me a lot) :

• kmix

• gnome-volume-control

• gnome-control-center, icon sound

• gmixer

• pavucontrol

• alsamixer

Thanks, Dsant. Very helpful.

Lisi

On Tuesday 08 April 2014 15:43:29 Alexandre wrote:

Then, some laptops has a function keys, on the same keys as F1, F..., where you can press FN+ (the mute button) to turn on or off the sound. On some lappies, these keys are driven by the software (in linux), or on older lappies, it is directly controlled by the hardware, which is more multi-platform friendly. Also, does the laptop has a hardware volume control, probably on the side of it?

That was it. Thank you so much Alexandre. There was a small actual button, immediately below the touch-pad. Daft place. It can obviously be touched by mistake far too easily!

I now know the model: Dell Inspiron 9300.

Thanks :-))

Lisi

On Tuesday 08 April 2014 19:11:13 Chris Graham wrote:

Another sound fixing trick for the newest distros:

yourusername@debian7:~$ su Password: root@debian7:/home/yourusername# alsa force-reload

This reloads all the sound drivers en masse. Though fairly reliable, the sound still craps out occasionally for me on Mint 15, Ubuntu 13.04 and Debian testing, ( on a regular Dell PC) and this command usually fixes it.

Thanks, Chris. I have marked this email to refind it. I can see myself having to use this often one way or another!

Lisi

On Tuesday 08 April 2014 15:51:22 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:

Am Dienstag, 8. April 2014 schrieb Lisi Reisz:

...

I have a client whose sound has suddenly died, after running well since the system was installed. (Six months?? A bit more?) The obvious explanations are user error (clicked something without realising) or dead hardware.

She is running Debian Wheezy with TDE 3.5.13.2 on an oldish Dell laptop. Since I haven't got the laptop here, I haven't got its specs. I cannot have the laptop to work on for the moment, since she is using it a lot for now.

All suggestions or explanations welcomed, Lisi

I remember a problem with kmixer and alsa that sounds like it. Symtom was, that kmixer did modify "maste" but "pcm"was 0%, thus no sound. The workaround was setting "pcm" to 100% (or what ever is suitable) using alsamixer from console. Sometimes doing this once solved the problem, sometimes I had to put amixer <someparameter> in rc.local.

An other one were the "enable"-switches. kmixer did not set the pcm on option. Doing that once in alsamixer solved the issue.

nik

Thanks, Nik.

Lisi