Perplexing Sound Problem (Aptosid/Debian)

Hello, all:

I got a new Asus G74SX-A1 and it arrived yesterday. I loaded Aptosid on it and was pleased to find that almost everything worked out of the box! The wireless needed some firmware and video drivers needed to be installed, but otherwise, no complaints at all. Even the mic worked, which it never had on my old system.

Until I installed something along the way and all my sound went away. I believe the fault to be with the NVIDIA driver I installed. If I open up Phonon and test "HDA Intel PCH (ALC269VB Analog)," I get perfect sound, but no actual programs will play any sound, and I can't seem to find any error messages. I got VLC to play sound if I manually set it to output through that output as well, but that's not really a solution for all of my sound-related software. I think the default sound is just being rerouted somewhere and I can't find where it is, which would explain why I hear sound if I specify the output but otherwise receive no error messages.

Does anyone here have any thoughts on what might be wrong and how I might go about fixing it?

Thanks.

- Trip

 

Nice machine.

Try setting the default output in gnome-volume-control

plz post output of

aplay -L

aplay -l

 

I'm using KDE and not Gnome, but I've already checked the volume controls. None are muted, and of course, that wouldn't make sense anyway since I do get sound out of it in some select instances.

trip@trip-g74sx:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC269VB Analog [ALC269VB Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC269VB Digital [ALC269VB Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
trip@trip-g74sx:~$ aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=PCH
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VB Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=2
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output

- Trip

 

Wow, never mind. I just went into KMix and discovered that it had hidden a "PCM" volume control that was muted. It was not displayed by default; I had to add it manually in the "Configure Channels" menu. Turning that up fixed it.

At 3AM last night, I don't remember seeing that there, but maybe I was just really, really tired.

- Trip