Issue with audio in pclos 2009<SOLVED>

[chrismccarty]

My father and I recently reinstalled pclos 2009 onto my computer and upon booting up I learned my audio is not acting right.  If I turn  the volume up on my stereo(that I'm running my sound through) I can faintly hear sounds but it is heavily distorted and sounds like a very low band radio station broadcasting through my speakers. I've tried searching online to troubleshoot this problem, however I'm an extremely green newbie when it comes to linux and I'm starting to think it may just be a physical problem with the sound card.  There in itself is the problem, I just don't know enough about computers or linux to say for sure.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

chris

[MaddogF16]

How exactly are the two tied together?

[Rudge]

You can eliminate everything from the sound card out, by plugging a (known to be working) set of headphones directly into the output of your sound card. If you still get bad sound, you have at least eliminated the connections, the stereo and the speakers. If it works with the headphones, it probably has nothing to do with your PC. 

[denoobifyme]

Utilities folder on your desktop. Click Setup Soundcard. Enter root password, follow instructions carefully. If it generates an error message, post it here, along with your computer, soundcard, and kernel/DE specs.

[chrismccarty]

Utilities folder on your desktop. Click Setup Soundcard. Enter root password, follow instructions carefully. If it generates an error message, post it here, along with your computer, soundcard, and kernel/DE specs.

Soundcard:
Vendor: ‎Creative Labs
Description: ‎[SB Live! Value] EMU10k1X
Media class: ‎Multimedia audio controller
Connection
Bus: ‎PCI
PCI domain: ‎0
Bus PCI #: ‎2
PCI device #: ‎2
PCI function #: ‎0
Vendor ID: ‎0x1102
Device ID: ‎0x0006
Sub vendor ID: ‎0x1102
Sub device ID: ‎0x1003
Driver
Module: ‎snd_emu10k1x
Alternative drivers: ‎unknown

Computer - Dell Dimension 4550
Processor ID: ‎1
Vendor: ‎GenuineIntel
Model name: ‎Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
Cpuid family: ‎15
Model: ‎2
Model stepping: ‎7
Connection
Vendor ID: ‎0x0000
Device ID: ‎0x0000
Sub vendor ID: ‎0x0000
Sub device ID: ‎0x0000
Performances
Frequency (MHz): ‎2000.000
Cache size: ‎512 KB
Bogomips: ‎3991.97
Bugs
Fdiv bug: ‎No
Coma bug: ‎No
F00f bug: ‎No
Halt bug: ‎No
FPU
Is FPU present: ‎Yes
Whether the FPU has an irq vector: ‎Yes
Misc
Cpuid level: ‎2
Flags: ‎fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid
Write protection: ‎Yes

KDE
version - 3.5.10
release - 2.6.26.8.tex3
machine - i686

also, no error message when configuring sound card and I checked the connections and the problem is definitely with something in/on the pc

[Was_Just19]

This reads as if the sound is minimised by some volume setting .....

maybe in a terminal run

alsamixer

The 'Tab' key will change the view ......  Inputs, -> Outputs, -> All

Navigation instruction on top of screen ....... I advise making the window big as there are a lot of options for that card.

With a song playing go through every one of the settings to see if anything helps.

[chrismccarty]

This reads as if the sound is minimised by some volume setting .....

maybe in a terminal run

alsamixer

The 'Tab' key will change the view ......  Inputs, -> Outputs, -> All

Navigation instruction on top of screen ....... I advise making the window big as there are a lot of options for that card.

With a song playing go through every one of the settings to see if anything helps.

still a no go...    I dunno what this means but alsactl init gives me this:   Unknown hardware: "EMU10k1x" "SigmaTel STAC9708,11" "AC97a:83847608" "0x1102" "0x1003"  Hardware is initialized using a guess method.  Dunno if it'll help but I can always hope!     

[Was_Just19]

This is what my PCC - Hardware shows for my card ..... slightly different card but a SB nonetheless

Identification
Vendor: ‎Creative Labs

Description: ‎SB Live! EMU10k1

Media class: ‎Multimedia audio controller

Connection
Bus: ‎PCI

PCI domain: ‎0

Bus PCI #: ‎5

PCI device #: ‎4

PCI function #: ‎0

Vendor ID: ‎0x1102

Device ID: ‎0x0002

Sub vendor ID: ‎0x1102

Sub device ID: ‎0x8040

Driver
Module: ‎snd_emu10k1

Alternative drivers: ‎audigy, emu10k1

Your's seems to be using a different module/driver ?

[Crow]

Do you have a Motherboard with integrated audio plus a sound card?  if so, deactivate the motherboard audio in bios.

SB live is well supported (I had one). If the sound is low and distorted there is a fix that has worked for me several times: first open Kmix (the little speaker in the taskbar),  you will see several tabs with sliders, move down carefully one by one until you hear a click (I think is from Inputs but  I don't remember which one is) if nothing happens return it to the initial position.

Hope it helps

[chrismccarty]

Oh wow so I think I figured it out, or rather, stumbled on the answer.  I went into alsa mixer and adjusted the toggle mute on left/right channel option until I came to the analog/digital output.  With a video playing I turned this output to off and blam, I heard sound.  Thanks to those who tried to help me out.   

Chris

[Crow]

If it works now please edit the subject of your first post and put the word SOLVED, that way others with a similar problem will look here first.