No Sound on Speakers w/ ALSA [Solved]

Question

Hello Everyone,
So I have Arch x86_64 on my Gateway 6860FX and sound on my headphones works perfectly but I can't get any sound on the built in speakers.
Here's the output of my lsmod|grep '^snd'
snd_usb_audio         100672  0
snd_usb_lib            19968  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            25248  1 snd_usb_lib
snd_seq_dummy           5380  0
snd_seq_oss            33792  0
snd_seq_midi_event      9344  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                58912  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          9620  4 snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_hda_codec_idt      70144  1
snd_hda_intel          31112  5
snd_hda_codec          70272  2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              10760  2 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss            45600  0
snd_pcm                83080  5 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              24848  3 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         11920  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss          18816  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd                    68296  23 snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
And a ls -l /dev/snd
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  0 2009-02-16 00:52 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  5 2009-02-16 00:52 hwC0D1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  6 2009-02-16 00:52 hwC0D2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 24 2009-02-16 00:52 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 16 2009-02-16 00:54 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 17 2009-02-16 00:52 pcmC0D1p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  1 2009-02-16 00:52 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 2009-02-16 00:52 timer
I have tried the following fixes so far but they don't seem to work:
Recompiling ALSA from source
No Sound with Onboard Intel Sound Card - http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA
Last edited by treefiddy (2009-05-06 20:04:07)

Answer 1

OMFG you are awesome, who would've even tried that!!!!
Thank you!
this information is literally nowhere else in the entire interwebs!!
I was going insane, I also have a Gateway P-6860FX running THE best linux distro out there, Archlinux of course!
I had it partially working with:
options snd_hda_intel model=notebook
which I got from http://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting
but my speakers never worked until I found your post, so I was using a craptastic USB soundcard I found in my garage.
While I'm at it lemme post my ".asoundrc" which took me about a week of research to construct.
  I had to do it this way because if I played ANY sound through any program while firefox was open on a page containing flash, all of the sound system was completely lost and mute until I restarted Firefox and/or the X session. Meaning no amarok while on the net if I planned on seeing any flash videos during my entire surfing session.
This configuration should work with ANY sound card that lacks a hardware mixer and uses dmix with the following effects:
1. OSS, AOSS and ALSA sound apps/games can share audio output without distortion
2. A new virtual soundcard called "My Soundcard with extra Volume Control" will show up under kde4 that feeds into the software mixer
3. A new volume control will show up in all your alsamixer apps that allows you to control the volume of all ALSA apps, OSS apps, while still mixed are only affected by the master volume.
~/.asoundrc
#/etc/asound.conf start:
#pcm.!default pcm.softvolPhonon
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvolPhonon"
#list card for phonon
pcm.softvolPhonon {
type softvol
slave.pcm "dmixer"
control {
name "Phonon"
card 0
min_dB -51.0
max_dB 0.0
resolution 100
hint {
show on
description "My Soundcard with extra Volume Control"
#endofphonon
pcm.dsp0 {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvolPhonon"
pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 8192
rate 48000 #many new cards are 48000 only
bindings {
0 0
1 1
ctl.dmixer {
type hw
card 0
device 0
#end.
if you have more than one sound card and want to use the second, just change "hw:0,0" part to "hw:1,0" and "card 0" to "card 1", this has the affect of changing the default sound card systemwide, without having to mess with each program's settings.