How to get sound working through HDMI with Intel HD Audio in Ubuntu 13.04

Question

HDMI output used to work fine on my Samsung NP300E5C laptop in Ubuntu 12.04. However, I did a reinstall with the new 13.04 release (64 bit), and now I don't see the HDMI output as a choice in the Sound Settings.

The aplay -l command returns the following:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
      Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

This means that the device is found, but can't be used, as can be seen when I input speaker-test -c 2 -r 48000 -D hw:0,3:

speaker-test 1.0.25

Playback device is hw:0,3
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Playback open error: -19,No such device

Also, alsamixer doesn't show sliders related to the HDMI output. What do?

Solution 1

To my knowledge there is a bug in the 3.9.0-19-generic kernel that causes this, you can use the mainline kernel till it is fixed, here is a easy installer for it https://github.com/GM-Script-Writer-62850/Ubuntu-Mainline-Kernel-Updater

Solution 2

Yes, it's a kernel bug introduced around mid-April (by ubuntu I think). Generic kernels don't have the problem. Nor do ubuntu kernels before mid April.

subscribe to this bug report to keep up to date on it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1169761

Comments

[Paul]

Thank you SO MUCH... I've spent 2 hours trying to fix this with no success... After finding this question and reading your answer IT WORKED.

[jüri]

Thanks to both answerers. Now we can see the latest episode of the most popular soap opera of my country with my girlfriend without me having to boot into w*ndows, accompanied by a lot swearing on my part. I'll keep following the bug report, hope the ubuntu kernels catch up!

[Eliah Kagan]

Better to run sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub to prevent hassles with user-specific gedit config files.