oui For some reason I can't change the balance to anything else than 32
Hmm. That works on mine. What about mixerctl -w outputs.master=192,0
& mixerctl -w outputs.master=0,192
etc? Sound on both channels or only on that selected?
oui However, I noticed that every time I changed a value using audioctl everything would reset to default values ...
...
ln -s /dev/sound0 /dev/audio doesn't seem to do it for me though, am I missing something here?
The difference between audio(4)
and sound(4)
is explained in the manpage; but, I don't think that's relevant here: before a program starts playing some audio file, it has to set the /dev/audio
device to the encoding format the audio file in in (or, convert/resample the audio file to one of the formats the card supports), so whatever you set will get reset by the player anyway. I tried out with various encoding, channel and rate setting using audioctl
. (Eg:
$ audioctl -w play=11025,1,8,slinear_le
play: -> 11025,1,8,slinear_le
play.rate: -> 11025
play.channels: -> 1
play.precision: -> 8
play.encoding: -> slinear_le
$
while I was playing videos, but, while the settings seemed to "take", as shown above, they had no effect on perceptible audio quality. I think this is a blind alley.
oui It's worth noting that the builtin speakers work just fine (mono speaker ). It's when I connect a stereo speaker or headphones through the audio jack that I get these symptoms.
Yeah. This is what inclines me to think that this is a HW issue. You have 2 DACs (my card has only one and if I plug in the headphones, the built-in speaker goes silent): one for the built-in speaker and the other for the headphone jack. Now, both DACs are more likely to be identical than different (for cost/simplicity reasons). With one you get proper sound; with the other you don't. This, to me, feels like a hardware issue. If it's not the jack or cables, then it is the socket on the board.
But, before you whip out your screwdriver and start probing with a continuity-tester, can you rule out SW problems (the RIRB timeout
kernel messages indicate that NetBSD support for your card is not completely there yet--there will be more in the logs) by booting Linux/Windows and testing?
PS. Found this interesting command hdaudioctl which might be worth investigating further (see the set codecid nid [plist]
command)--if one can figure out what it all means:
$ sudo hdaudioctl list
codecid 0x00 nid 0x01 vendor 0x1106 product 0x8446 subsystem 0x108D1043 device hdafg0
codecid 0x03 nid 0x01 vendor 0x8086 product 0x2806 subsystem 0x108D1043 device hdafg1
$ sudo hdaudioctl show 0 1
nid Data As Seq Device Conn Jack Location Color Misc
========================================================================
36 90170110 1 0 Speaker Fixed Analog Internal Unknown 1
37 0221401F 1 15 Headphones Jack 1/8" Front Green 0
40 422140F0 15 0 Headphones None 1/8" Front Green 0
41 50A701F0 15 0 Mic In None Analog Internal Unknown 1
42 418130F0 15 0 Line In None 1/8" Rear Blue 0
43 41A190F0 15 0 Mic In None 1/8" Rear Pink 0
45 474411F0 15 0 SPDIF Out None RCA Rear-panel Black 1
48 90A601F0 15 0 Mic In Fixed Digital Internal Unknown 1
51 501701F0 15 0 Speaker None Analog Internal Unknown 1
$ sudo hdaudioctl show 3 1
nid Data As Seq Device Conn Jack Location Color Misc
========================================================================
5 58560010 1 0 Digital Out None Digital 0x18 Unknown 0
6 18560020 2 0 Digital Out Jack Digital 0x18 Unknown 0
7 58560030 3 0 Digital Out None Digital 0x18 Unknown 0
$
Everything without a Conn
(ector) of None
I can account for: built-in speaker, HP jack, built-in MIC & HDMI audio. But, no clue as to what Data
, As
or Seq
are.