Realtek ALC860 sound problems in Tahr (fixed itself)

[James186282]

Hi everyone. I had problems with this dumb sound chip in the past. And although I made a note about changing a line in alsa.conf to get it working I think I did something else before that (Not knowing it was a step in the right direction)
The line that I fiddled with was
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-660
And it was the model=auto at first which I think made it fail.

I wrote careful notes on other weirdness with this computer and my favorite printers from prehistoric time. But the notes on this are not paying off. I've tried search. I've googled. I've duck duck go(ed) until I'm blue in the face. I've done the setup sound wizard, the multicard wizard (Wizards getting to be a tired term to me) and I've made certain that the speakers are plugged in the volume is set to head crushing levels and I've got the Alsamixer up (Its shows all the sliders) and none are muted. The only clue (maybe) is that
aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC880 Analog [ALC880 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: pcsp [pcsp], device 0: pcspeaker [pcsp]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

*note the ALC880 and not ALC860 and the part in the motherboard is a Realtek chip not Intel. Is it loading some Intel driver perhaps? Any help would be so greatly appreciated.

Oops! I'm using Tahr6.02 and I ran the updates and the upgrade. I don't think it has anything to do with Tahr. I've bashed my head against the wall with this sound problem before.

[Flash]

So your sound problem is no sound even though everything looks like it ought to work? Do you get an error message at any point?

[James186282]

Its really strange. No errors. I hear the speaker 'Thump' when Puppy is loading (Which is normal when it worked) and if I run something like VLC and turn on one of the visuals it looks like its playing. Tried the Alsa Gui mixer to double check nothing is muted. On the alsa forum there is a bash script that collects a lot of sound info. I note that its reporting no sound servers on this machine. I'm a little hazy how this works. There is a sound driver (module) that deals with the hardware and its output goes to the linux kernel. That driver is provided by the collection of stuff that comes with Alsa. Then once the sound is kernel ready there is a codec? Then to the program such as mplayer? Anyway perhaps my problem is this lack of a server? I'm so totally lost at this point and would really like to understand how this works.
The sound chip from looking at the output of lspci is an intel 82891FB. In my notes I had it as the Realtek part but I don't know how I got that idea. Maybe the motherboard info.

Maybe this link will help with the alsa diagnostics script will help.

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=fd1eb ... a1b0d7de23

[bigpup]

When you run Multiple Sound Card Wizard.

Is this selected?
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC880 Analog [ALC880 Analog]

Right click on speaker icon in tray.
Choose full window.

Make sure PCM is checked and turned up.

Everything else looks OK.

[James186282]

Yes - that what it shows and pcm, master everything is pegged at full on and I'm loosing my mind because. I just clicked play on VLC (The program I had been using not getting anything) before I threw in the towel. thought its time to take a break from this. Hooray!!!!

So... I checked those two things and I hit play (I wanted some source to be going while I fiddled around) and the (Insert your favorite bad word) thing works! Its playing Dave Brubecks greatest hits? All I did was click the speaker as you suggested but I didn't touch the settings on anything. Honest! I just clicked the play button and was going to look for the repeat option and its working. I was so shocked I almost fell out of my chair.

I'm trying to think of anything I did before leaving. And unless I've lost my mind I didn't do anything. I didn't even reset the machine after I sent the last message. I just got up with it on (Which I normally don't do) and went to Perkins. It didn't loose power because VLC is still running... Am I loosing it? I came home and it works?

This machine has run full time for so long without me having to do have to reload it or anything that I forgot why in was so difficult to get sound working before. I know that the alsa.conf had to have a line added but I did that like 30 complete resets and a couple power down wait and restarts ago. I'm starting to think God or his angels took pity on me and fixed this while I was gone. Or I need to speak to the mental health professional... Oh wait I don't have to schedule that... *Forget I said that...

Thank you for both for looking this over and such. I appreciate it.

I'm going to go back to the alsa page and try to understand whats going on under the hood. I'm not sure what to put down in my notebook other then PRAY and ask the Puppy Linux guys to send the magic.

My notes included only one thing to be changed. There are other notes that
talk about what files do what and what to be sure is in them...
# Tack this options line on the end of the file located in...
# /etc/modeprobe.d/alsa.conf
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack

[bigpup]

In the early days of computer development they installed the reset switch.
Why?

It was the only way to get the thing working, when we could not figure out why it was doing what it did.