[pulseaudio-discuss] 2 sound devices, one mostly won't play, but works

[Doug]

On 03/28/2011 11:09 PM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
> On 03/29/2011 12:52 PM, Doug wrote:
>> Hello, group--I'm a newbie here.  Running PCLOS with KDE 4.6.1.  I 
>> recently decided that I wanted to be able to try out SKYPE, and I
>> don't want to move cables around, so, since I had an old sound card, 
>> I plugged it in. Up til then, sound was on MOBO and worked
>> fine.  Now sound only comes out p/i card, except once for a minute, 
>> until I messed with the GUI PAVU, and now it's back to the
>> p/i card again, only.  I have tried sound output from an internet 
>> radio station and from an mp3 file on a CD.  It was the CD that briefly
>> produced output from the MOBO sound device.  Here is what the system 
>> says about the cards:
>> (Trident is p/i; SiS is on MOBO)
>>
>> [doug@(none) ~]$ cat /proc/asound/cards
>>  0 [TRID4DWAVENX   ]: TRID4DWAVENX - Trident TRID4DWAVENX
>>                       Trident TRID4DWAVENX PCI Audio at 0xdc00, irq 17
>>  1 [SI7012         ]: ICH - SiS SI7012
>>                       SiS SI7012 with ALC655 at irq 18
>>
>> I went as far as I could with the instructions in "The Perfect 
>> Setup"--I'm in group 2, and I edited /etc/group
>> to eliminate everything and then added "pulse."  At this point I got 
>> a little confused, coming to "Third Party
>> Applications" and ALSA Applications:  my asound.conf is not in /etc 
>> but in /usr/share/xbmc/system.  So far I
>> have not messed with that.  After that, I got even more perplexed: 
>> what do I do (if anything) with the virtual
>> ALSA device pulse?  (I find /etc/pulse and 
>> /etc/sound/profiles/pulse.)  What do I do with % aplay and % amixer?
>> And in which file?
>>
>> Further down, "If you want to make PulseAudio driver the default, use 
>> something like this in the ALSA configuration
>> files:"  Well, I don't know if I want to make the PulseAudio driver 
>> the default; I don't know what that would do
>> for me or to me.  And if I did, just what are the "ALSA configuration 
>> files"?  Then if I should do this, where would
>> I put the load-module module-alsa-sink device-hw:0?
>>
>> One other thing:  To the far right of each "port" is a green ball 
>> with a white checkmark.  It cannot be unchecked or
>> modified, so I don't know what it's supposed to do. The plug-in card 
>> shows up as the lower port, even tho it appears
>> first on the list above, and has a lower IRQ.
>>
>> Sorry to be such a dunce, but I'm afraid I have exhausted my 
>> resources. All help and advice gratefully appreciated.
>>
>
> You can change the order of the cards in the asoundrc or set the 
> default card in the sound preferences (pavuctl) to be the onboard device.
>
(I didn't snip out the old material, in case someone else comes in late 
and wants to know what's going on.)

I don't have asoundrc.  It's not loaded, and it doesn't exist in the 
Synaptic package manager.  I have tried every combination I could think 
of in
pavuctl.  I'm using the gui, because when I opened the program in the 
Konsole, it produced a graphic image that looks identical to the gui
I get off the KDE screen. There is nothing that says "default" and once 
in a while the green check box, if you hover over it, will say something 
like
set preference or something like that, but snapping on the one for the 
port I want to listen to does nothing.  The only way I get any kind of
sound out of the top port is when I move the volume sliders, and the 
speakers go "bong" every time I do it.

It seems to me that it would be giving up if I have to build or buy a 
switch box, and just pull the second card out, assuming that would
let the MOBO sound work once again.  So what now?

--doug


-- 
Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A. M. Greeley