How i fixed my sound. Still some problems though

Hey guys. I FINALLY got sound after nearly giving up and switching back to Windows.

First I explain what I did. Then at the bottom I need some help fixing problems (for anyone whos sound works fine and doesnt want to read what i did but still wants to help me ).

OK, this is how i did it. And i am a complete noob.

I found a thread here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=283155&page=3&highlight=realtek+alc861 and followed what empier said to do (2nd post on the page)

First I uninstalled and reinstalled the alsa files he mentions. Though i did find these files in Synaptic packaged manager, i just followed his instructions exactly and used his codes in the terminal to uninstall and reinstall. As he mentioned it also uninstalled gdm and ubuntu desktop. But it was simple to reinstall them. Didnt have any problems, but sound still didnt work after rebooting the computer.

So next I went here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto
From this page i followed the instructions from "Update to the latest version of alsa" down. It was more complicated but i made it through. I downloaded the most reent drivers from this page instead of the one mentioned ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/alsa/snapshot/ . The only problem i ran into was "Compile and install alsa-utils". In the terminal, it was getting ERROR 1 messages. I had no clue what to do so i just ignored it. Restarted the computer. Still No sound.

After rebooting I went back to the "HDA Intel how to" page and finished the instructions with "Manually specify which flavor you are using"
the code (or flavor) that worked for me was the first one mentioned "3stack"

After rebooting. Sound finally worked. And everyhting was turned on and very loud, including my microphone.

After going through this whole process. Linux changed from detecting my device as ALC861 to now detecting ALC660. ALC660 is also what windows detects. Also, before this process, the "alsamixer" function in terminal brought up a control panel where i could only change a couple settings. Now after Ive got a lot more option, most of which i dont know what they do.

***** Ive still got problems and questions though.

1. When i goto System>Preferences> Sound it still gives me the option to choose a device HDA Intel, or Realtek ALC660. Both seem to work, but which one should i leave it on. Same thing when i right click on the speaker next to the time and date. Under preference i can choose one.

2. My Fn and Volume keys are completely messed up. Right now I have my device set to HDA Intel. When i use the keyboard hotkey (Fn+Mute) to mute the volume, a volume bar will popup at the bottom of the screen and switch to mute... but i can still hear all sound. When i use it to change the volume, it is already automatically completely down (it shows that volume slider is all the way down). When i volume up, the volume bar that popped up at the bottom of the screen will increase and so will the sound. But once it reaches half way...it gets so loud it basiclly blows out my speakers for like 2 notches. once i pass that point the sound gets lower but is still really loud. It also does not change the volume level viewed from any of the mixers or the speaker icon next to.
It is like completely independent from any other vokume controls. It can raise the volume, but cannot mute or turn it all the way down, cause it is default at the lowest setting. It also goes crazy at half way.

Could this have somehting to do with the error I got when installed Alsa Utility (For those who read up top) ?

Thanks.

 

I use with-card=ATI in my desktop realtek sound card

 

is that code?

i dont get it?

 

That's the configure option when you compile alsa-driver

 

lol... sorry, newb here.

So can i do something with that to fix my sound controls? If its not too much trouble could u give me a brief step by step or code of what i need to do?

Thanks

 

You need to download alsa-driver-1.0.14rc2(this is what I am using), alsa-util, and alsa-lib from alsa-project.org. The basic configuration for alsa-driver is:
./configure with-oss=yes with-cards=ati(or your original hda-intel)
then run:
make; sudo make install
For util and lib, you just type: ./configure; make; sudo make install

The original fesity alsa driver is 1.0.13 and may sometimes cause problem, 14rc2 works for my V3000Z including headphone jack. I don't have Fn+volume key but volume bar instead.

The gnome volume controller will give you lot of options of controlling master volume and PCM volume(wave in Win). Old drivers(13) are possible to mess up some of detailed features. So do upgrade first, and see if you still have the same problem.