# [Solved] dead audio channel until maximum volume

## Logicien

I have an HP compaq nx9110 with Ati chipset. The left channel is down periodicly. The only way to activate it then, is to put the volume to the maximum. Both channels become correct. I am on Debian Sid (I say it) with kernel 2.6.32 vanilla. On XP I have that problem to. So what kind of problem is that, a software, a hardware or both? Thank's for any help !

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## PaulBredbury

If I had to guess, I'd say it was a hardware problem. It's too unlikely for the Windows driver and ALSA to have the exact same bug.

You should google for your model number with alsa, and see if other people have it working OK.

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## Logicien

I had problem with channel who was dead and flashplugin who stop working at any time. The source of thoses problems came from cpu frequency that I configure for conservative governor. It seem's that my HP compaq nx9110 need full processor speed or performance governor for sound and video. Since I use performance governor everythings in multimedia are ok at the cost of a bit more noisy fan and higher temperature.

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## PaulBredbury

 *Logicien wrote:*   

> need full processor speed

 

Did you investigate further, and see *which* power-saving state you need to disable?

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## Logicien

No. I tried conservative, ondemand and performance governors with cpufreqd deamon. The thing I wanted with cpu frequency scaling was to have the lowest speed when the system is idle. Since I use performance governor, I can't have that and I am now sceptic about this cooling technic. It seem's safer to use full processor speed for at least stability and needed performance at any time.

```
pot 06:39 ~ $ acpitool -e

  Kernel version : 2.6.33-ARCH   -    ACPI version : 20091214

  -----------------------------------------------------------

  Battery #1     : slot empty

  AC adapter     : on-line 

  Fan            : <not available>

  CPU type               : Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4     CPU 3.06GHz 

  Min/Max frequency      : 1596/3059 MHz

  Current frequency      : 3059 MHz

  Frequency governor     : performance 

  Freq. scaling driver   : acpi-cpufreq 

  Cache size             : 512 KB

  Bogomips               : 6134.71 

  Processor ID           : 0

  Bus mastering control  : yes

  Power management       : yes

  Throttling control     : no

  Limit interface        : no

  Active C-state         : C0

  C-states (incl. C0)    : 2

  Usage of state C1      : 2021121 (99.1 %)

  Thermal zone 1 : ok, 55 C

  Trip points : 

  ------------- 

  critical (S5):           82 C

  passive (forced):<not set>

   Device   S-state     Status   Sysfs node

  ---------------------------------------

  1. ELAN     S3    disabled  pci:0000:02:03.0

  2. USB0     S3    disabled  pci:0000:02:07.0

  3. USB1     S3    disabled  pci:0000:02:07.1

  4. USB2     S3    disabled  pci:0000:02:07.2

  5. KBC0     S3    disabled  pnp:00:05

  6. MSE0     S3    disabled  pnp:00:06

```

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## PaulBredbury

 *Logicien wrote:*   

> lowest speed

 

You're not making sense. Maybe you can make do with second-lowest speed. Why would that be unacceptable? Have you tried?

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## Logicien

I have only 2 speeds for scaling:

```
pot 16:17 ~ $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

3059000 1596000 

pot 16:18 ~ $ 

```

Because the 1596000 frequency cause me problems with audios channels (left or right is dead, but not both) and flash animations I must use 3059000 frequency and hopefully it resolv the problems.

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