[alsa-devel] Surround problems on ALC883

[Pavel Patz]

Dne st 18. dubna 2007 Takashi Iwai napsal(a):
> At Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:42:42 +0200,
>
> Pavel Patz wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have problems with chip Realtek ALC883 (lspci: 00:06.1 Audio device:
> > nVidia Corporation MCP55 High Definition Audio (rev a2)) and surround
> > sound.
> >
> > Stereo sound is working (games, music) fine - all 6 speaker are playing.
> >
> > But when I tried to run "aplay chan-id.wav", i've heard only "front left"
> > (front & rear left + center were playing) and "front right" (right front
> > & rear were playing), then was silence until the end of the file.
> >
> > Running "aplay -Dsurround51 chan-id.wav" causes that aplay hangs-up
> > without any output. Running it with -v parameter produces this output:
> >
> > Playing WAVE 'Desktop/Surround-SDL-testfiles/chan-id.wav' : Signed 16 bit
> > Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Channels 6
> > Soft volume PCM
> > Control: PCM Playback Volume
> > min_dB: -51
> > resolution: 256
> > Its setup is:
> >   stream       : PLAYBACK
> >   access       : RW_INTERLEAVED
> >   format       : S16_LE
> >   subformat    : STD
> >   channels     : 6
> >   rate         : 44100
> >   exact rate   : 44100 (44100/1)
> >   msbits       : 16
> >   buffer_size  : 5460
> >   period_size  : 1365
> >   period_time  : 30952
> >   tick_time    : 1000
> >   tstamp_mode  : NONE
> >   period_step  : 1
> >   sleep_min    : 0
> >   avail_min    : 1365
> >   xfer_align   : 1365
> >   start_threshold  : 5460
> >   stop_threshold   : 5460
> >   silence_threshold: 0
> >   silence_size : 0
> >   boundary     : 6147413491360727040
> > Slave: Hardware PCM card 0 'HDA NVidia' device 0 subdevice 0
> > Its setup is:
> >   stream       : PLAYBACK
> >   access       : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
> >   format       : S16_LE
> >   subformat    : STD
> >   channels     : 6
> >   rate         : 44100
> >   exact rate   : 44100 (44100/1)
> >   msbits       : 16
> >   buffer_size  : 5460
> >   period_size  : 1365
> >   period_time  : 30952
> >   tick_time    : 1000
> >   tstamp_mode  : NONE
> >   period_step  : 1
> >   sleep_min    : 0
> >   avail_min    : 1365
> >   xfer_align   : 1365
> >   start_threshold  : 5460
> >   stop_threshold   : 5460
> >   silence_threshold: 0
> >   silence_size : 0
> >   boundary     : 6147413491360727040
> >
> >
> > and then hang up until i press ctrl+c.
> > Same results i get with speaker-test.
>
> Looks like the stream setup doesn't match with your device.
>
> > I'm using alsa-lib-1.0.14-0.4.rc3.fc7
>
> The more important thing is the version of ALSA driver you're using.
> Try the latest ALSA version (not released one), HG version, at first.
> If you don't want / have HG, try the daily snapshot tarball below:
> 	ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/alsa/snapshot/
>
> Then check whether it's a supported device or not.  If yours is an
> unsupported one, you'll see a kernel messages like "unknown model,
> using BIOS..."
> Anyway, you can try different model option value for snd-hda-intel
> module, as listed in Documentation/ALSA-Configuration.txt.
>
>
> Takashi

Hi,

thanks a lot, it is working now!!!

1) upgrade to last (today's) snaphot helped - there were no hang-ups when 
using -Dsurround51

2) Auto-detection is not working (i got "hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC883, 
trying auto-probe from BIOS...") - just must use model=6stack-dig

[cdome at andromeda ~]$ /sbin/lspci | grep Audio
00:06.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP55 High Definition Audio (rev a2)

3) When starting alsa i usualy get one of these messages:

[root at andromeda Audition]# /etc/init.d/alsasound start
Starting sound driver: snd-hda-intel done
/usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1326: No soundcards found...

or 

[root at andromeda Audition]# /etc/init.d/alsasound start
Starting sound driver: snd-hda-intel done
XXX write TLV...

however sound is working properly. From my view is hard to say under which 
conditions i get which one - just sometimes first one and sometimes second 
one.

4) It seems there are Center+LFE and Rear Left+Right jacks swapped - i had to 
connect Center to Rear output and vice versa. But controls in alsamixer are 
not swapped so i have to use Surround slider to adjust Center and LFE 
speakers; LFE slider to adjust Rear right speaker and finally Center slider 
to adjust Rear left speaker.

5) As my soundcard is 7.1, current driver is incapable to use it:
[cdome at andromeda Surround-SDL-testfiles]$ speaker-test  -Dsurround71 -c8

speaker-test 1.0.14rc1

Playback device is surround71
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 8 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Channels count (8) not available for playbacks: Invalid argument
Setting of hwparams failed: Invalid argument

(uhm, i get that "Invalid argument" message in czech language as "Nepristupny 
argument", i hope that is proper translation)


But as I said, it is working now (even with those minor problems)! I hope my 
message will help you make alsa better.

Thanks again for your great work.

Pavel