Re: [SOLVED] Shuttle XS35GT Barebone HDMI sound issues

[Homeboy]

Hi,

I'm running 810 and try to manage the Shuttle XS35GT as MD which is a very nice Nvidia ION based fanless barebone. After following the wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/ShuttleX50V2  for unrecognized NIC, it is working fine with the exception of Audio/DVD under LinuxMCE and in KDE.
It is curious to me (a linux newbie) that I 'm able to watch MythTV with sound (Myth frontend setup as Alsa:plughw 1,7) but not under LinuxMCE. I've tried several configurations of Sound cards and Audio settings under LMCE setup whithout success. So it seems to me that MythTV is bypassing or not using the LMCE configuration files in terms of sound.

XS35GT comes with:
Integrated Audio
IDT92HD81 Audio Codec with Azalia support
Two analog audio connectors (3.5mm):
1) Line out (head phone)
2) microphone input
Digital Audio via HDMI port

were i'm using HDMI with Denon AVR-2307.

Any suggestion is much appreciated.

Heinz

[bongowongo]

Is audio working at all?
First let's tackle the problem with your DVD, because why isn't that working?
Could you elaborate?

[Homeboy]

Hi Bongowongo,

Thanks for fast reply.
No, audio isn't working at all, even at lmce setup i cannot hear any  sound under different configurations. When playing DVD or video under lmce or KDE, no sound appears. Only in MythTv sound is available either watching TV or playing video.

Heinz 

[bongowongo]

First things to test with no audio.
Are your volumes up, and unmuted?
Go into alsamixer and check.
Go into bash, sudo su -> password, then type "alsamixer"

[Homeboy]

Hi,
Volumes up and unmuted, accordingly MythTv is with sound and I can control volumes.
If I try playing media in lmce, now a small window appears with "audio output is busy or not available".
I guess it is based on audio controller of this pc which isn't recognized by lmce, but again MythTv can handle it.

Heinz

[bongowongo]

When you installed did you get sound in the AV-wizard?
Did you select the proper output?

[Homeboy]

No sound during AV-wizard and i selected the correct output. That's why i can have sound when starting MythTv inside lmce.

Heinz

[bongowongo]

Well I think you select the correct output in mythTV, and the wrong for linuxmce.
Which TV-card do you have, and is your audio correctly registered? See dmesg for errors.

[Homeboy]

no TV card in this MD installed only in my core.
I get a lot info with dmesg. how to limit the output for audio only?

thanks,
Heinz

[bongowongo]

check this wiki
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Audio_over_HDMI

[Homeboy]

After testing various configurations without success, I got the issue solved and the sound over HDMI working. The Shuttle XS35GT is not PnP in LMCE like other Ion2 based systems, too (see http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=10058.0). Basically we need to add the right modules for the sound-cards which are a Nvidia GT21x and an Intel HDA based one.

The output of  lspci shows the audio device name

Code Select Expand

# lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)


and aplay -l shows

Code Select Expand


root@moon103:/proc/asound# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


Accordingly, card0 is the analog sound card and card1 the NVIDIA, so I updated the
1./etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf
and the
2./etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
with

Code Select Expand

options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=0 probe_mask=1,2


Then it was needed to create the personalized configuration for the sound card with file .asoundrc in the home directory because /etc/asound.conf will be overwritten/updated by LMCE.

Code Select Expand

nano ~/.asoundrc
pcm.!default hdmi:NVidia
pcm:iec958 hdmi:NVidia
pcm.!hdmi-remap {
  type asym
  playback.pcm {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "remap-surround71"
  }
}
pcm.!remap-surround71 {
  type route
  slave.pcm "hw:1,3"
  ttable {
    0.0= 1
    1.1= 1
    2.4= 1
    3.5= 1
    4.2= 1
    5.3= 1
    6.6= 1
    7.7= 1
  }
}



Now change to "/usr/share/alsa/cards" and replace the default HDA-Intel.conf with the one at pastebin by following this post
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1624449&highlight=hdmi+sound+shuttle+ion2

Backup the current file HDA-Inel.conf before replacing with http://pastebin.com/f2e38265 if you need to switch back.

After these steps I'm able to listen AC3 and DTS surround sound over HDMI.

Heinz

[paolopost]

Thanks Homeboy.
Your instructions were the only one I found over the network that works (and I tried many)
Anyway, I have a question.
After the configuration you suggested, I have now on my XS35GT (Ubuntu 10.10) two output devices, both of them 'Analog Stereo' rather than an analog and a digital over HDMI.
Is there any way to fix this downgrade?

[Homeboy]

Hi paolopost,

Since I'm running Kubuntu 8.10, I don't know the reason for. Anyway, next weeks I intend to upgrade my system and come back with my findings.

Heinz