[alsa-devel] No sound on Intel DQ965GF motherboard

[Eric S. Raymond]

Thank you, alsa developers, for the prompt resolution of my previous
sound issue with the Thinkpad X61.  Unfortunately, I've now turned up
an apparently different problem on very similar hardware.

Sound doesn't work on my DQ965GF motherboard under Ubuntu 7.10.
Here's what I've found out about it.  I'm writing in hope that someone
on the ALSA devel list can suggest diagnostics to pin down the problem
exactly.

The device has PCI ID [8086:284b] (rev 02).  It is an Intel 82801H.

This appears to be an Ubuntu-specific error.  At
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/intel-dq965gf-mobo-front-sound-jacks-not-working-510302/
I found a post implying that at least the rear jacks on the mobo are
active under Fedora Core 6.  I have therefore filed an Ubuntu bug at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/162410 but seen no response.

This also appears to be a very hardware-configuration-specific error.
I have an Intel HDA audio device on my X61 laptop with PCI ID
[8086:284b] (rev 03), another 82801H, that works just fine under
Ubuntu 7.10 (the alsa version is nominally 1.0.14 but some 1.10.15
fixes, including the right one, were backported).  Note the 03 as
opposed to 02 subrev.

aplay -l, which is supposed to list sound playback devices, returns no
listing on the DQ965GF.  As a check, on the X61 where it works it
returns this:

    card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
      Subdevices: 1/1
      Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

lsmod also returns suggestively different results.  On the laptop, its
output includes this line.

    snd_hda_intel         337192  1

On the DQ965GF, here are the sound device lines:

    snd_hda_intel         337192  0 
    snd_usb_audio          96640  1 
    snd_pcm_oss            50048  0 
    snd_mixer_oss          20096  1 snd_pcm_oss
    snd_pcm                94344  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm_oss
    snd_usb_lib            20352  1 snd_usb_audio
    snd_seq_dummy           5380  0 
    snd_seq_oss            36864  0 
    snd_seq_midi           11008  0 
    snd_seq_midi_event      9984  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
    snd_seq                62496  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
    snd_timer              27272  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
    snd_rawmidi            29824  2 snd_usb_lib,snd_seq_midi
    snd_seq_device         10260  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
    snd_hwdep              12168  1 snd_usb_audio
    snd                    69288  13 snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep
    soundcore              10272  1 snd
    snd_page_alloc         12560  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
    usbcore               161584  8 usbhid,snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,xpad,gspca,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd

Note that snd_hda_intel has no users and that snd_usb_audio has 1.

On the DQ965GF, the Sound Preferences tab on my Gnome toolbar thinks
the sound device is "USB Device 0x46d:0x8ad (ALsa mixer)".  I don't
know what tool GNOME is running to determine this.

This arch-linux thread gave me some insight:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/6617

It appears the snd_usb_audio driver is a red herring, or at least a
separate bug.  I checked, and my dmesg log does indeed say "hda-intel:
no codecs found!" on boot, which suggests that snd_hda_intel is
loading and then failing to initialize properly, accounting for the
usage count of 0.

I tried reverting the kernel patch mentioned in the arch thread (e.g. 
recompiling the snd_hda_intel driver with #define AZX_MAX_CODECS 4)
but this did *not* solve the problem. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I need my music back!
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of
slander on the poor.
	-- H. L. Mencken