[Rastan]

Hi,

I had XBMC installed on Windows XP. Everything worked as expected. I connected the PC to a HDTV via DVI to HDMI cable. Then used the PC onboard sound and plugged that from the headphones port to the TV. I installed XBMC Live 10.0 Dharma as advised by some very knowledgeable users in another thread. (By the way I am totally new to Linux) I eventually got everything installed to the hard drive from the XBMC Live DVD I burnt. Had some major pains to get the SMB Shares recognised.

Everything now works except for the sound. I can hear sound through the PC's built in speakers. But when I link the PC to TV via the headphone jack as I did with windows XP the sound disappears. The funny thing is when I press cnt+Alt and F2 to get to the command line thingy the sound magically comes back. But when within XBMC itself nothing. I have made sure everything is unmuted but nothing.

I have a theory though. I think the sound Drivers are too new as I had a similar problem when I installed Windows 7 on this same PC a while back. The sound worked but when plugging in headphones the PC ignored it and played sound through the built in speakers.

Is there any way I can change the drivers for the sound?
I hope someone can help me as I am close to giving up, I have been at it all day trying to sort this.

My specs are Compaq Evo D500 Desktop PC, Pentium 4 2GHz, 768MB Ram, nVIDIA GeForce 8400GS Graphics Card.

[Blue screen]

Did you have a look at "settings" in xbmc?

There is a few sound options to play around with.

[Rastan]

Yup, I have tried all the different options in the settings screen in XBMC. I am at a total loss here. Maybe if I get a seperate PCI soundcard and reinstall everything that may solve the problem.

[bertybassett]

have you been in programs/audio mixer and un-muted everything in there? Also turn it up to 100%

[bertybassett]

I just noticed that you have an nvidia 8400gs. I too am having problems using an 8400gs from the terminal I type aplay -l (thats and a lowercase L, not i) and my nvidia sound card is not listed so I think ubuntu is duff with this card unless someone else know anything to get it working via HDMI.

[darkscout]

Are there any extra headers on the Video Card? Most things I've read say you need connector from SPDIF on the motherboard to SPDIF connector on the video card. There is no on-chip audio device like on the GT2X series.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=160185

--


But seriously did you even look try? Google "8400 HDMI Audio" and there are a billion hits. The first 999.9 Million hits all reference this cable.

[bertybassett]

lol yes I checked google for about an hour, was trying "XBMC 8400gs hdmi no audio" type searches, must have just missed what I needed.

That makes sense about the spdif connector. I'll check my motherboard for one. Hopefully it has one, but its a dell so won't hold my breath.

[bertybassett]

nope just checked motherboard and no spdif, crap!!! will have to get another card maybe a GT210.

[Rastan]

Are there any extra headers on the Video Card? Most things I've read say you need connector from SPDIF on the motherboard to SPDIF connector on the video card. There is no on-chip audio device like on the GT2X series.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=160185

--


But seriously did you even look try? Google "8400 HDMI Audio" and there are a billion hits. The first 999.9 Million hits all reference this cable.

I am not trying to play my sound through the HDMI cable. I wanted to have HDMI handle the picture and the soundcard to handle sound separately as that is what was working in XP. I tried Linux and everything worked properly except sound. I'm pretty sure its something that linux is doing as I now have installed Windows 7 and put in a bit more RAM and everything is working properly. The video plays via HDMI and the sound works through the headphone jack on the sound card. Its a shame as I liked how the Live install made the GUI smoother when browsing my library. Posters and fanart loaded instantly how I am accustomed to like on my other machine and it booted straight into XBMC. I guess I will just have to try a newer build of the Live CD when made available. Thanks to all for the suggestions though.

[zepfan]

Nvidia? I seem to remember this was happing a while ago. You had to find your edid and strip out some HDMI settings, because it assumes sound out through it. I'll check later and see if I can find the guides.

EDIT: Found it quick, let me know if this helps at all, I used to have to do this, so I can help if you need some help.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=99932
The Mythtv guide has some good info too.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Configuring_A...VI_to_HDMI

[Rastan]

Nvidia? I seem to remember this was happing a while ago. You had to find your edid and strip out some HDMI settings, because it assumes sound out through it. I'll check later and see if I can find the guides.

EDIT: Found it quick, let me know if this helps at all, I used to have to do this, so I can help if you need some help.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=99932
The Mythtv guide has some good info too.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Configuring_A...VI_to_HDMI

Thanks for the links. I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think my problem is that the drivers in XBMC Live think that the sound is coming through the HDMI lead and has then disabled the headphones port.

On the second link you sent there is a tutorial on how to edit the drivers to re-enable the sound through the headphone port. Unfortunately I cant make heads or tails of it. It says....

Acquire EDID Block

In order to resolve this, the nVidia drivers must be provided a modified EDID block saying the TV does not support audio. On nVidia hardware, there are two ways to acquire the original EDID block.
Using nvidia-settings

This method requires you have a mouse and keyboard attached to the machine.

1. Run 'nvidia-settings' on the local X-Server
2. Click the entry corresponding to your TV (e.g. DFP-0)
3. Click 'Acquire EDID' and save the 'edid.bin' file

I tried pressing ctrl,Alt and F2 then typed nvidia-settings. It didnt know what I was typing...lol

Then on the tutorial there is a second option...

Using nvidia-xconfig

This method can be performed completely from a text console.

1. Run an X server with enough verbosity to print out the EDID block
startx -- -logverbose 6
2. After the X-Server has finished initializing, close it
3. Find your log file, it will probably be in /var/log/Xorg.0.log
4. Extract the EDID block using nvidia-xconfig
nvidia-xconfig --extract-edids-from-file=/var/log/Xorg.0.log --extract-edids-output-file=edid.bin
5. The previous nvidia-xconfig command may fail to extract an EDID even if it's present in the log file. Open the log file and look for 12 or so lines of raw hex (it should be exactly 512 characters once all the spaces and non-hex characters have been removed). Copy the raw hex into a hex editor like HxD and save it as edid.bin (the resulting file should be exactly 256 bytes).

This method looks like its the correct method for my situation but I dont understand this one at all. X server is the black screen where you type the commands right?

I dont suppose its possible to simplify it even further so I can follow and complete. It looks like it should take 10 minutes but the terminology is all alien to me

[kinh]

have you been in programs/audio mixer and un-muted everything in there? Also turn it up to 100%

Your post really helped me to solve the "no sound" problem with xbmc live 10 on my Zotac. Thanks.

[Wozza_au]

Hi
Im a rank linux noob so take the following with that in mind
I sorted my sound issues out by doing the following
boot into xbmslive then open a console ctrl+alt+F2
enter the user name and password
at the prompt type

Code:

less /proc/asound/modules

then enter this will display what sound cards are installed...hit q to exit
you might get something like
0 snd_hda_intel
1 snd_intel_blah blah
In the above the 0 sound snd_hda is the hdmi sound card and the 1 snd_intel was the onboard sound card

So what I did was kill off the hda driver as I only wanted the onboard sound.
I did this in a forceful and not very elegant way after trying everything else by blacklisting the hda driver,so I only had one sound card to deal with

at the prompt type

Code:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

hit enter you should now see a list in the editor(nano) of all the blacklisted items scroll down to the bottom of the listing and type in

Code:

blacklist snd_hda_intel

(insert the name of the sound card you got from using the less command above and want to remove)
then ctrl+x the y then enter
hit alt ctrl delete to reboot the system
when back in xbmc check that the system setting for the sound is set to default and everything else looks right for your setup

play a cd or some music then go to a console (ctrl+alt+f2)
enter user name password
type in alsamixer then enter
now use the arrow keys to highlight the channel and raise lower the sound level,use the m key(mute) to toggle the channel on off and do this till you can hear the sound you started above and are happy with the result
.
hit alt+f7 to return to xbmc and do a shut down and reboot just to verify its all still working fine
cheers
Wozza