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No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Output

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MrLizard
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Joined: 2017-05-20 23:16

No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Output

#1 Post by MrLizard »

So my sound was working with ALSA, but the sound quality was sub-par (it is far better in Windows 7 on the same laptop), so I tried to install the Realtek Linux HD Audio driver source package "Rt-Linux-HDaudio-5.18" from http://www.realtek.com.tw/. That didn't work at all and now I have no sound at all. Wish I hadn't done that. Anyhow, no I have no sound and I would like to reset ALSA how it was to fix the sound.

I'm on Debian Jessie stable x64

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uname -a
Linux debian 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.43-2 (2017-04-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux
I really hope I can fix this without reinstalling the whole system because I spent a lot of time setting everything up and the sound is the only problem. :?

The PulseAudio settings panel says "Dummy output".

My soundcard is: Realtek Audio ALC-3234 on the Dell Inspiron 5548 laptop.

snd-hda-intel was installed before, but I can't seem to reinstall that now.

Here are some potential clues, although I must admit I am relatively new to Linux so I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing:
(I'll refrain from entering any more commands I'm not sure about)

lspci | grep Audio

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00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
sudo mobprobe snd-hda-intel

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modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'snd_hda_intel': Invalid argument

aplay -l

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aplay: device_list:268: no soundcards found...
cat /proc/asound/modules

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(returns nothing)
lsmod | grep snd

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snd_soc_rt5640         82914  0 
snd_soc_rl6231         12442  1 snd_soc_rt5640
snd_soc_core          151396  1 snd_soc_rt5640
snd_compress           17197  1 snd_soc_core
snd_soc_sst_acpi       12559  0 
regmap_i2c             12783  1 snd_soc_rt5640
snd_hda_controller     26646  0 
snd_hda_codec         104500  1 snd_hda_controller
snd_hwdep              13148  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                88662  4 snd_soc_rt5640,snd_soc_core,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_controller
snd_timer              26720  1 snd_pcm
snd                    65338  6 snd_soc_core,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec,snd_compress
soundcore              13026  2 snd,snd_hda_codec
i2c_core               46012  11 drm,i915,i2c_i801,snd_soc_rt5640,i2c_hid,i2c_designware_platform,regmap_i2c,drm_kms_helper,i2c_algo_bit,v4l2_common,videodev

cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

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options snd-hda-intel model=generic
options snd-hda-intel index=#CARD NUM#
options snd-hda-intel model=pch position_fix=1
aptitude search alsa |grep -E ^i.*

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i   alsa-base                       - dummy package to ease purging of obsolete 
i   alsa-oss                        - ALSA wrapper for OSS applications         
i   alsa-utils                      - Utilities for configuring and using ALSA  
i   alsamixergui                    - graphical soundcard mixer for ALSA soundca
i   gstreamer0.10-alsa              - GStreamer plugin for ALSA                 
i   gstreamer1.0-alsa               - GStreamer plugin for ALSA 
alsactl init

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bash: alsactl: command not found
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

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(returns nothing)
but with sudo apt-get install alsa-utils,

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"alsa-utils is already the newest version."

I also tried this but it didn't help:

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sudo aptitude --purge reinstall linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils linux-image-`uname -r` linux-ubuntu-modules-`uname -r` libasound2

Thanks.
(As a side note I read that OSS has somewhat better sound than ALSA. Can OSS be installed in Debian 8.8 and is the sound any better? I listen to a lot of music and the sound is noticeably worse in Linux vs in Windows, which is a let down because I would otherwise like to remove Windows entirely... However my priority is of course resetting ALSA so I have some sound.)

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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#2 Post by stevepusser »

Broadwell hardware is poorly supported on the mid 2014 3.16 kernel--I'm sure if you install inxi and look at the result of inxi -G, you'll also see crippled video indicated if you are using the intel GPU (gallium and llvmpipe).

You can try an upgrade to the latest kernel in jessie-backports; that may sidestep the broken drivers installed by the RT package, since the kernel includes the audio drivers.
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MrLizard
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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#3 Post by MrLizard »

stevepusser wrote:Broadwell hardware is poorly supported on the mid 2014 3.16 kernel--I'm sure if you install inxi and look at the result of inxi -G, you'll also see crippled video indicated if you are using the intel GPU (gallium and llvmpipe).

You can try an upgrade to the latest kernel in jessie-backports; that may sidestep the broken drivers installed by the RT package, since the kernel includes the audio drivers.
I installed the driver for my Intel HD 5500 graphics card from jessie-backports - you're right it was gallium llvmpipe before but now it's the correct driver.

Just ran:

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sudo apt install -t jessie-backports linux-image-amd64/jessie-backports
I hope that's correct.

MrLizard
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Joined: 2017-05-20 23:16

Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#4 Post by MrLizard »

Well, that broke my Wi-Fi drivers. And didn't fix the sound problem, still "dummy output".

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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#5 Post by stevepusser »

If you upgrade your kernel, you often need to also upgrade the firmware from jesse-backports also. If your graphics and wi-fi also depend on building a proprietary driver, such as Nvidia or broadcom-sta-dkms, you need to upgrade your linux-headers package to match the new kernel.

The 4.9 kernel also seems to require a workaround for those using Realtek 88XX or 89XX wi-fi hardware, if that applies to you.

Can you still boot into the stock 3.16 kernel? It should appear as a choice in GRUB, maybe under the advanced section.
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MrLizard
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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#6 Post by MrLizard »

stevepusser wrote:If you upgrade your kernel, you often need to also upgrade the firmware from jesse-backports also. If your graphics and wi-fi also depend on building a proprietary driver, such as Nvidia or broadcom-sta-dkms, you need to upgrade your linux-headers package to match the new kernel.
So, I downloaded the driver for the 4.1+ kernel from the Intel website and copied it to /lib/firmware and rebooted but still no wifi.
lsmod shows a "0" next to iwlwifi, which I guess means the driver is not being loaded.
sudo modprobe iwlwifi gives "Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode failed with error -2"

Installing firmware-iwlwifi from the repos doesn't work too, neither from the jessie-backports repo.
stevepusser wrote: The 4.9 kernel also seems to require a workaround for those using Realtek 88XX or 89XX wi-fi hardware, if that applies to you.
No, it's Broadcom Dual-Band AC 3160
stevepusser wrote:Can you still boot into the stock 3.16 kernel? It should appear as a choice in GRUB, maybe under the advanced section.
Yes, I can, and the wi-fi works in there. But of course the sound still doesn't work in either kernel.

So, to use the 4.9 kernel I need to fix the wi-fi problem as above, as well as the sound problem, and to use the 3.16 kernel I need to fix the same sound problem.

Either way... help. Why doesn't anything ever work in Linux on my laptops :(

MrLizard
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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#7 Post by MrLizard »

Anyone?

At a loss here.

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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#8 Post by stevepusser »

No, it's Broadcom Dual-Band AC 3160
Seems like a typo, 3160 is an Intel wi-fi chipset.

What do you show for

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apt-cache policy firmware-iwlwifi
and

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su -c 'ifconfig -a'
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MrLizard
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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#9 Post by MrLizard »

apt-cache policy firmware-iwlwifi

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firmware-iwlwifi:
  
Installed: 0.43
  
Candidate: 0.43
  
Version table:
 *** 0.43 0
       500 
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie/non-free amd64 Packages
       
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

su -c 'ifconfig -a'

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eth0      
Link encap:Ethernet  
HWaddr 34:17:eb:86:dd:4f  
          
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)




lo        
Link encap:Local Loopback  
         
 inet addr:127.0.0.1  
Mask:255.0.0.0
          
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
         
 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          
RX packets:509 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          
TX packets:509 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
          
RX bytes:35848 (35.0 KiB)  
TX bytes:35848 (35.0 KiB)

Sorry the line breaks didn't copy over properly, but it looks like it's not even seeing my wlan card

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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#10 Post by stevepusser »

I repeat, with the newer kernel, you should also upgrade any firmware packages you have installed. Jessie-backports packages do not upgrade automatically; you can get around this with a setting change in Synaptic if you're using it, by using the "-t jessie-backports" flag on the command line, or specifying that apt/aptitude install an exact version.

An easier, quick method would also be just to download the deb package and install in on your system--no messing around with changing the repos: https://packages.debian.org/jessie-back ... re-iwlwifi

Download link at the bottom.
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MrLizard
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Re: No sound after install Realtek HDaudio driver- Dummy Out

#11 Post by MrLizard »

stevepusser wrote:I repeat, with the newer kernel, you should also upgrade any firmware packages you have installed. Jessie-backports packages do not upgrade automatically; you can get around this with a setting change in Synaptic if you're using it, by using the "-t jessie-backports" flag on the command line, or specifying that apt/aptitude install an exact version.

An easier, quick method would also be just to download the deb package and install in on your system--no messing around with changing the repos: https://packages.debian.org/jessie-back ... re-iwlwifi

Download link at the bottom.
Oh ok, installing that from the backports .deb package worked. I now have wifi in the 4.9 kernel, thanks.

Now for the sound... I would ideally like to install OSS rather than ALSA (for better sound quality), if you could help me out with that?
I'm not sure which packages I need and if there's any other setup/fixing I need to do. After installing that Realtek driver from source, I can't get the sound to work at all.

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