How to debug lack of sound in Asus EEE PC

Question

I have an Asus EEE PC 1225B with fresh Lubuntu 12.04. And no sound. It doesn't seem to be some common problem, so I have to make some research what's up. I tried running alsamixer, so I know I have Realtek ALC269VB with nothing muted unexpectedly. What can I do next to identify and solve the problem?

Additional info:

alsamixer shows two cards: HD-Audio Generic and HDA ATI-SB (Realtek ALC269VB); the first one is muted.

~$ aplay
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:682: błąd otwierania audio: Nie ma takiego pliku ani katalogu

The Polish part can be translated as "error opening audio: There is no such file or directory".

~$ sudo lspci -v | grep -A7 -i "audio"
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6250/6310]
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 103b
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
    Memory at feb44000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [58] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
    Capabilities: [100] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=010 <?>
--
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 103b
    Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
    Memory at feb40000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Solution

First, aplay requires an argument. In this case it would be aplay -l to list the devices.

Secondly, with the Asus eeepc there frequently is a problem that ALSA often sees two sound cards: HD-Audio Generic (essentially a virtual device,that doesn't actually play music but mighty worh with an HDMI cable to another device) and the required HDA ATI SB. The simplest way to check it is to launch aplay -l.

If HD-Audio Generic is the first card (0) it is the default card. If it is the case, than you're likely to have no sound unless the default card is switched from 0 to 1.

If it doesn't exist create /etc/asound.conf ...add the following three lines.

defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.timer.card 1

...give that a whirl.

Comments

[Kalmar]

It seems installing pulseaudio helps. (I wish I knew why exactly.)

[drkokandy]

well if you've installed pulseaudio, you're now using pulseaudio rather than alsa, which is why the trouble you were having with alsa is no longer present.

[Kalmar]

Interesting, I see no Sound Settings in Preferences... That's the place where I should look for them, right?

[otus]

Sorry, I missed the L in front of your Ubuntu. :$ Not sure how to get to the settings there.