Troubleshooting audio for Acer Aspire E 17 (E5-771G-7868)

Question

My system is Lubuntu 14.04.1 AMD64 Desktop:

$ uname -a
Linux polyphemus 3.13.0-37-generic #64-Ubuntu SMP Mon Sep 22 21:28:38 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty

Sound is not playing:

$ speaker-test

speaker-test 1.0.27.2

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1022:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory

These are my devices:

$ lspci -nn | grep -i audio
00:03.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller [8086:0a0c] (rev 0b)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP HD Audio Controller [8086:9c20] (rev 04)

The modules are loaded:

$ lsmod | grep snd
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                61560  2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi            30144  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device         14497  3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     46368  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek    65580  1 
snd_hda_intel          56451  1 
snd_hda_codec         192906  3 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              13602  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm               102099  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_page_alloc         18710  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer              29482  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd                    69322  13 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi
soundcore              12680  1 snd

What else could I do to troubleshoot this problem?

Answer 1

The problem is that the default soundcard is HDMI device, not main soundcard .
A way to change sound devices order at a low level (alsa) is to add this 2 lines at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf :

options snd-hda-intel index=0 model=auto vid=8086 pid=9c20
options snd-hda-intel index=1 model=auto vid=8086 pid=0a0c
then reboot.

(the "vid" and "pid" value is from your lspci command)

You could find other way like using pavucontrol (pulseaudio volume control) to change default output device for Pulseaudio: clic green buton near second device in "output device tab", not sure it will works for speaker-test .