Linux on laptop, question

[pureman]

Hi all,
Just installed RH 7.2 on my laptop, which is NEC Versa FX.
Things look fine, except there's a noise, no matter what I do, it's just getting louder.
I tried to configure the sound card, but it works fine.
Possible problems maybe with speakers or keyboard or LCD panel.
I couldn't find out exact info for LCD, so I chose generic, everything looks good... maybe something wrong?
Don't know how to diagnostic speakers, so that maybe the problem.
For keyboard, I picked generic 101 key, US layout, while the laptop got a 85 key-keyboard, that could be another problem.

What should I do to diagnostic the problems? Any good sites on Linux for laptop? As you already figured out, I don't
know much about Linux, just could barely do some programming on my Linux desktop. So, any help or hint/tips you can
give is appreciated! Thank you and have fun!

 

[mcveigh]

try here

can you turn off the sound, are you using kde desktop? I always have problems with kde sound

 

[MedicBob]

Do a Google search for Linux on laptops. Several sites out there.

 

[pureman]

Thanks, gonna try to find some more info on google.
Btw, I use gnome all the time, and no way I could turn the sound off.

 

[kylef]

There should be a mixer application like aumix or kmix or gmix or something like that... If the sound was configured automatically (which happens maybe 50% of the time) then one of these mixer applications should be able to control sound.

If the sound problem you're having is a "hissing" sound coming from the speaker during computer activity, then most likely you need to mute the "PC Speaker" mixer channel. Normally it takes any beeps that would be directed to the PC speaker and sends them through the sound card. But there's a lot of noise on the PC speaker wire, so that's the noise you hear through the laptop speakers.

This is the noise issue that I have had with two different laptops, so it might help you. But then again, YMMV.

Good luck!

 

[andrey]

Is your microphone muted? That most likely the source of the noise.

 

[pureman]

kylef,
thanks for the help, I was able to turn off the sound by going into Audio Mixer, and turned off volume('cause turning speaker off alone wouldn't do it).
I once again tried to use "sndconfig" to configure the sound card, but the noise came out loud with sound sampler, so I had to turn them off.
oops, Linux on laptop just hang on me, that's the first I've seen...
anything I can do to get sound back without noise? or I have to stuck with no sound? I can live with that, just... sound is nice

andrey,
thanks for the reply, I tried to examin the laptop as carefully as possible, couldn't find a microphone. Guess speakers are all it's got.

Anyways, now the noise is gone, I'm able to mess around again... that's nice

 

[kylef]

It sounds like you do in fact have sound running on your machine, so sndconfig is not going to help you anymore. if you run /sbin/lsmod you should see a device like "ac97_codec" and another for your particular sound module like "trident" or "ess". If those are indeed showing up, then the sound drivers are loading correctly and there is no need to run sndconfig.

Now, as for the noise issue, you SHOULD be able to address that through the mixer application that I mentioned earlier. You stated that you were able to turn down the volume and get rid of the noise. Obviously that's not a great solution because you lose all sound! But you're right that it will provide a quick fix...

However, it would be better to determine the source of the noise (which particular mixer channel) and mute it. This will allow you to continue to hear sound from the other channels, such as your Cd-ROM and PCM channels (which is how mp3's play, among other things).

Depending upon what mixer you used and what kind of sound device you have, there should be several different sliding bars, each representing a different mixer channel, such as:

Main, PCM, CD-ROM, MIDI, Microphone, I-Gain, PC-Speaker, etc...

You should make sure that the microphone is "muted" (normally a button below the slider) and that the PC-Speaker is either muted or the volume is turned all the way down. These are the two most common sources of noise. Occasionally, I have seen CD-ROM drives also produce noise, and you might try muting that channel as well to see if that helps. Obviously, if you mute the channel, you will not be able to hear CD's that you play through your CD drive, however.

The main volume level (which is the level of amplification for ALL of the mixer channels) should be at 85% or so, and the PCM channel should be set anywhere from 50% to 90%, or whatever is comfortable for you. If you use XMMS to play MP3 songs, the volume slider in the XMMS application actually controls this PCM volume level and not the "master" level.

Occasionally, I have seen a bug in the sound drivers where the mixer volume levels are reset every time the computer is restarted. If this is the case with your system, then you should be able to fix the noise by running the mixer and setting the levels manually, but when you restart the system, the noise will come back.

You can correct such a probem using a console mixer program called aumix that can be used from the command line to set mixer levels. This can be done in a script that runs at system boot so that the mixer is set properly each time you reboot the machine. It MAY be necessary to add this to your startup scripts, but only if the noise keeps coming back after reboots.

 

[pureman]

kylef:
That's really informative
You are right about the mixer thing.
In Gnome, I tried to mute different channels, only muting the main volume worked. And, every time I restarted, the noise kept coming back. So I had to mute the sound each time I log in... I tried to automate this task...
Unfortunately, gnome kept crashing on me like two out of three... that's unbearable...

So I reinstalled RH 7.2 and log in text mode. From there I start KDE every time I feel like using GUI. It turns out that I have better luck with KDE.
I used "Sound Mixer" in KDE and muted Microphone channel, then saved it as default. And... it worked! Noise no more! The sound never sounds so beatiful before, woohoo!

You been a big help, thanks
Linux is great, so are Linux people.