Commit identified in the subject (ALSA: HDA - Add Independent Headphone for all models of ad1988/ad1989) causes problem with audio on at least two Asus boards and is still present in current kernel. The boards on which this problem is seen are Asus M3A79-T DELUXE and Asus Rampage II Gene (actually a slightly modified version used in Asus CG5290 desktop).
The symptoms: 1. XFCE and Gnome2 audio mixers crash whenever sound is started or stopped. The error message is: simple_none.c:1350: get_enum_item_ops: Assertion `helem' failed.
2. On one of the boards (Asus M3A79-T DELUXE) the mixer control labels are misconfigured since muting the Master channel does not turn the sound off. Either Master is mislabeled or it does not work correctly.
Other than that, the sound actually works fine, but it is very annoying when mixer keeps crashing. Reverting to kernel just before the commit fixes these issues. Thus it appears that the commit 34588709af61be1550b4e2bcee5c85d0ac4f34d4 breaks autodetect for these boards. A workaround is to force the 6stack-dig model and this fixes problems on both boards, but, of course, it would be preferred if things work out of the box.
We do not understand enough of alsa in kernel to propose a patch, but hope that we have provided enough information that it will be easy to write. We are happy to provide more information and test any proposed patches.
Alsa-info for both boards can be found below.
Best regards, Miro Hodak and Manolo Diaz
Results of alsa-info
Asus Rampage II Gene:
Before the commit: http://pastebin.com/gCZurk6D After the commit (autodetect): http://pastebin.com/3hNX2g1c After the commit (6stack_dig model): http://pastebin.com/dL0UGeTW
More recent kernel: 3.6.11-gentoo (autodetect): http://pastebin.com/0gjnhYA2 3.6.11-gentoo (6stack_dig model): http://pastebin.com/K9bsWBWW
Asus M3A79-T DELUXE
Before the commit: http://pastebin.com/hyUBmpDL After the commit (autodetect) : http://pastebin.com/gzGg60bM After the commit (6stack_dig model): http://pastebin.com/y88jCMhM