[omega9380]

I have been fighting with this for days. I have searched these forums, the Ubuntu forums, generic Linux forums, even the OpenELEC forums and I cant figure out what is going on. I picked up an HP DC5750 SFF desktop rig from Newegg for a song ($155) specifically to turn it into my XBMC HTPC, replacing a rig I custom built from parts I had lying around. Now, the computer has some respectable stats (chk it out, it really is a deal: Newegg DC5750), BUT, it is seriously lacking in the video (Intel chipset and shared memory) and the sound (Intel sound, 2 channel only) departments. Good for business, not much for multimedia. I remedied the video issue with the generous application of an XFX Radeon HD 4350 low profile video card and that works BEAUTIFULLY. Herein comes my problem after my long ramble . I picked up a SiiG Soundwave 5.1 PCI-LP sound card and dropped it in. Under Win7, everything works great so I know the card and my speakers (Logitech Z-530 analog 5.1) are fine. We get into Linux now. I have tried both XBMC Live Dharma 10.1, and my current setup, XBMCbuntu Eden Beta 3. I get menu sound. But ONLY from the front right channel. If I run

Code:

speaker-test -Dsurround51 -c6 -twav

I get nothing from front left, but everything else checks out. In XBMC, no matter what I change my audio setting to, all I get is sound from the front right channel. If I run a 5.1 video I found on Youtube (not sure how reliable to be honest), center comes from FR, NOTHING from FL, FR comes from FR, RR came from RR, and RL came from FR. I dont know WHAT is going on with this. ALSA detects the card as a Chaintech AV-710, using the ICE1724 driver. The card itself uses the VIA Tremor VT1723 chipset. I spent no less than 5 days reinstalling XBMC, screwing with ALSA and modprobe and lspci (oh my). I finally said screw it, reenabled the on-board sound (which is working perfect of course ) and have been living with 2 channel sound. I WANT MY 5 CHANNELS BACK!! HELP ME PLEASE!! Let me know ANY stuff you need me to post, and I can drop the card back in the computer and grab whatever it is.

[omega9380]

Any help at all?

[boblablah]

I have been fighting with this for days. I have searched these forums, the Ubuntu forums, generic Linux forums, even the OpenELEC forums and I cant figure out what is going on. I picked up an HP DC5750 SFF desktop rig from Newegg for a song ($155) specifically to turn it into my XBMC HTPC, replacing a rig I custom built from parts I had lying around. Now, the computer has some respectable stats (chk it out, it really is a deal: Newegg DC5750), BUT, it is seriously lacking in the video (Intel chipset and shared memory) and the sound (Intel sound, 2 channel only) departments. Good for business, not much for multimedia. I remedied the video issue with the generous application of an XFX Radeon HD 4350 low profile video card and that works BEAUTIFULLY. Herein comes my problem after my long ramble . I picked up a SiiG Soundwave 5.1 PCI-LP sound card and dropped it in. Under Win7, everything works great so I know the card and my speakers (Logitech Z-530 analog 5.1) are fine. We get into Linux now. I have tried both XBMC Live Dharma 10.1, and my current setup, XBMCbuntu Eden Beta 3. I get menu sound. But ONLY from the front right channel. If I run

Code:

speaker-test -Dsurround51 -c6 -twav

I get nothing from front left, but everything else checks out. In XBMC, no matter what I change my audio setting to, all I get is sound from the front right channel. If I run a 5.1 video I found on Youtube (not sure how reliable to be honest), center comes from FR, NOTHING from FL, FR comes from FR, RR came from RR, and RL came from FR. I dont know WHAT is going on with this. ALSA detects the card as a Chaintech AV-710, using the ICE1724 driver. The card itself uses the VIA Tremor VT1723 chipset. I spent no less than 5 days reinstalling XBMC, screwing with ALSA and modprobe and lspci (oh my). I finally said screw it, reenabled the on-board sound (which is working perfect of course ) and have been living with 2 channel sound. I WANT MY 5 CHANNELS BACK!! HELP ME PLEASE!! Let me know ANY stuff you need me to post, and I can drop the card back in the computer and grab whatever it is.

You can drop to a terminal or connect via ssh if older xbmclive, and run alsamixer from the command line. This will bring up a crude but awesome application that will show you the levels on everything you have for options with that sound card. Are you connected via all analog connections to your amp, or are you using a toslink or digital coax connection? Make sure your levels aren't muted for the remainder of your available outputs and see if there's something you can try in there...

also I know you may need to use the hwplug option to set it to simply let the card decide how your connected and what to output.

[omega9380]

alsamixer is detecting all channels on the card. Every channel is unmuted and turned up to the max. I am hearing a quiet popping from all the speakers when i turn the volume up and down, so the speakers are all working.

[hakova]

Well, omega 9380 what can I say? I guess you are luckier than me, since I cannot even hear anything from any speaker with that combination using XBMCbuntu 11.0. In alsamixer, all channels are detected and unmuted. However spdif channel only reads 00 and cannot be turned up at all. There is nice red light coming from the spdif socket though. The output of aplay -l lists my card as card #1, and iec958 as device #1. I select the "chaintech alsa 1 iec958" in audio settings of xbmc both for output and passthrough, and that is the only option among the available ones that gives me "failed to initialize sound device, please check your audio settings" error.

I think I am going to give up and go to Windows XP/XBMC route to make things work. Such a shame.