# ibm t20 sound problem

## thomasjb

this notebook has a crystal sound card and it generally works under kde with the two crystal driver in the kernel enabled. however the volume is so low that it's pretty useless. sofar i couldn't find out how to get the volume up. could anyone be so kind please and point me in the right direction? thanks.

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## cyfred

You will need to either configure alsa http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml to use the sound card as then you can control the hardware volume of the device. Of install and use the kde sound server (arts) "emerge arts" and then use that to control a fist layer of software volume control.

EDIT :: Alsa doesnt come out of suspends well, so if you want to use apm/acpi features then maybe you should choose arts.

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## thomasjb

thanks a lot, i'll try that.

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## thomasjb

actually i do have arts-1.1.0 installed on my kde-3.1 system. but i can't find any config to control the volume. could you kindly help me out on this? thanks.

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## cyfred

If you wish to use arts as your pure sound server, you will need to compile support for the card into your kernel. Once you have done that either start the module at boot time by adding its name to /etc/modules.autoload or if you have it compiled straight into the kernel it will start for you.

Start up KDE and open the sound configuration section of the control center, and enable the sound daemon "aRts" -- restart KDE and you should hear the KDE startup melody, to control the volume use the speaker on the taskbar (next to clock).

Under a console, using this method, you will lose the ability to adjust the volume of your sound.... i think... alsa-mixer may still work but it could be dependent on alsa drivers, i dont know of any volume controllers that control the volume for a kernel compiled driver.

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## thomasjb

thanks, cyfred, appreciate your help. as i said in my original post though, i did compile the crystal sound drivers into the kernel, and i do have arts installed and it's working, working in the sense that there is sound, but the problem is i can barely hear it even when turning up the volume on the t20 to maximum, and i can't figure out how to solve that problem. any hints would be really wellcome. thanks.

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## jcharum

I am running a T22 with a similar (if not the same) Crystal card.  I use ALSA with the cs46xx driver, and it works pretty well.  I suggest trying ALSA.  Install with the guide linked by cyfred above, and use the following to emerge the appropriate ALSA driver:

```
env ALSA_CARDS='cs46xx' emerge alsa-driver
```

Once this is all set, kmix or alsamixer control volume nicely.  The only issue I have with sound nowadays is that occasionally when resuming from a suspend, artsd errors with a "cpu overload" error, and I have to restart artsd.  Also, I use alsa-driver 0.9.0_rc3 (instead of 0.9.0_rc6 which is the latest in my Portage tree) because the rc6 does not work after a suspend at all for me.

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## thomasjb

thanks a lot for your help jcharum. i'll try the alsa drivers and see if it changes anything for me. thanks.

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## Mitchybums

for me it works also great, IBM T20

env ALSA_CARDS='cs46xx' emerge alsa-driver

emerge alsa-oss

emerge alsa-utils

change /etc/modules.d/alsa folowing the gentoo alsa setupguide

and follow the rest in there.

then arts will work

do NOT compile soundcards in your kernel, just enable soundsupport is enough

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## thomasjb

thanks everyone, works like a charm now.

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