Multimedia audio controller

[commiecam]

I have upgraded an old Compaq Presario 2200 laptop (2218RS) by maxing out its RAM, replacing its missing disk drive with a 160GB and its dead wifi card with a later model.  All has gone very well on this box, which I bought on eBay for (believe it or not) $1.04!  I have tried a few distributions, including PC-BSC, but in the end I installed VL 7.0. 

The laptop is running beautifully but for one problem.  There is no sound at all, from either speakers or earphnes, regardless of the distribution or setup used.  Running lspci -v as root, I get (in part):

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 3084
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
        I/O ports at 1c00 [size=256]
        I/O ports at 18c0 [size=64]
        Memory at e0100c00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
        Memory at e0100800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: Intel ICH
        Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0

Further, running lsmod gives:

Module                  Size  Used by
fuse                   51559  2
msi_laptop              4667  0
snd_seq_dummy           1035  0
snd_seq_oss            21907  0
snd_seq_midi_event      3924  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                36499  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          3853  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            28741  0
snd_mixer_oss          10545  2 snd_pcm_oss
p4_clockmod             2372  0
speedstep_lib           2558  1 p4_clockmod
freq_table              1763  1 p4_clockmod
mperf                    937  0
b43                   139300  0
mac80211              160102  1 b43
cfg80211              110051  2 b43,mac80211
rfkill                 10898  2 msi_laptop,cfg80211
snd_intel8x0           20342  4
snd_ac97_codec         80849  1 snd_intel8x0
ac97_bus                 774  1 snd_ac97_codec
ssb                    36374  1 b43
snd_pcm                48666  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
mmc_core               52725  2 b43,ssb
yenta_socket           16235  0
snd_timer              12858  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
8139too                14735  0
pcmcia_rsrc             7353  1 yenta_socket
thermal                 6450  0
sg                     18020  0
pcmcia                 25660  2 b43,ssb
video                   9731  0
pcmcia_core             8753  3 yenta_socket,pcmcia_rsrc,pcmcia
processor              21842  1
mii                     2883  1 8139too
thermal_sys             9985  3 thermal,video,processor
rtc_cmos                6673  0
container               1873  0
button                  3510  0

snd                    36298  15 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer

wmi                     6295  0
battery                 8607  0
ac                      2477  0
hwmon                   1093  1 thermal_sys
intel_agp               8014  0
i2c_i801                6330  0
soundcore               3736  2 snd
joydev                  7017  0
i2c_core               13898  1 i2c_i801
snd_page_alloc          5143  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
intel_gtt               9727  2 intel_agp
evdev                   6626  7
agpgart                19211  2 intel_agp,intel_gtt
shpchp                 18739  0

It has been a long tme since I have had to do any problem solving of this sort, and never with a sound chip.  I've looked, but I can't see any obvious problems and neither can I find any sort oftest program or script  to test the onboard sound to determine if it's functioning correctly.  Can anyone help me out by seeing a problem that I'm missing or by suggesting a method of testing the hardware?

Thanks, Ed

[bigpaws]

It appears that the sound module is being used.

The first thing to check is that the sound is enabled
in the Bios (found notes about this problem).

Second make sure that the card is not muted.

You can also in the terminal try using this command:

alsamixer

See if the card is recognized.

HTH

Bigpaws

[commiecam]

Thanks for the advice!  I would never have thought of the Bios.  Alslaplayer showed the card just fine, but still no audio.  I checked the Bios, then rebooted and still no audio from the speakers.  So on spec, I plugged in the ol' Sennheisers ad voila!   It appears that my one buck computer's speakers are kaput ad not the sound card.  Well, what can you expect for a dollar and four cents.

Many thanks for your help!

Ed

Linux since '94, plus RTE-A, HP-UX, Ultrix, Tru64, BSD and BeOS. Anything but Windoze!