# ALSA Troubles, with snd-hda-intel [Solved]

## eyoung100

Fellow Gentooers,

I need help.  I just put a new machine together, and followed every guide like I have 1,000 times before.  I ran into the problem below, and am curious what to do next?  I built a modular kernel using genkernel with menuconfig turned on, as I have built hundreds of kernels by now.  I followed the Gentoo ALSA Guide, and was dumbfounded when alsaconf gave me:

```
alsaconf

No Supported PnP or PCI cards found.  Would you like to probe for legacy ISA sound cards/chips?

Yes | No
```

Investigating further, I doublechecked lspci:

```
ecyoung@bedroom_gentoo ~ $ sudo lspci | grep Audio

00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
```

and made sure genkernel modularized ALSA and the driver modules:

```
ecyoung@bedroom_gentoo ~ $ sudo lsmod | grep snd

snd_hda_codec_realtek   239924  1 

snd_hda_intel          17604  0 

snd_hda_codec          48880  2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel

snd_hwdep               4200  1 snd_hda_codec

snd_pcm                45832  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec

snd_timer              13312  1 snd_pcm

snd                    38744  6 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer

soundcore               3776  1 snd

snd_page_alloc          5280  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
```

Using the logic that ALSA did not detect any cards, I tried a hunch with alsamixer, and got:

```
alsamixer:

Card: HDA NVidia                                     F1:  Help               

Chip: Realtek ALC887-VD                        F2:  System information

View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All  F6:  Select sound card 

Item: Master [dB gain: 0.00]                      Esc: Exit               

Levels: 

Master 100, Unmuted

Front: 100, Unmuted

Surround 100, Unmuted

Center 100, Unmuted

LFE 100, Unmuted
```

```
ecyoung@bedroom_gentoo ~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia

                      HDA NVidia at 0xfe024000 irq 22
```

How can these be unmuted when alsaconf doesn't pickup any cards?  Until I get this fixed I cannot add alsasound to the default run level is it possible yo create the file that alsaconf generates by hand?

edit: solved manually edited /etc/modules.d/alsa to read: 

```
# Alsa kernel modules' configuration file.

# ALSA portion

alias char-major-116 snd

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel 

options snd-hdma-intel model="generic"

# OSS/Free portion

alias char-major-14 soundcore

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

<rest of file>
```

The option is what's important here for 2 reasons:

snd-hda-intel must be added manually because ALC887 is not in the models list in the kernel docs

options model="generic" sets the card to the base model of all ALC88* cards

----------

## NeddySeagoon

eyoung100,

alsaconf is only useful when you have exactly one sound device.

When you add a webcam with a mic, a USB headset and so on, you need to edit your alsa.conf file by band.

----------

## eyoung100

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> eyoung100,
> 
> alsaconf is only useful when you have exactly one sound device.
> 
> When you add a webcam with a mic, a USB headset and so on, you need to edit your alsa.conf file by band.

 

It doesn't help when alsaconf won't pick up your device because the model isn't listed either  :Smile:   I know everything works now because I am now using KDE4, and sound starts after it boots up.  I'll remember that about the webcam etc.  I love these new plasmoids  :Smile: 

----------

