silent soundblaster live problem

[Paul M. Bucalo]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:15:42 -0500, Sy Beamont graced me with:
> On Wednesday 18 February 2004 08:59, Paul M. Bucalo wrote:
> 
>> Have you checked your system's sound mixers? If you are running
>> KDE instead of Gnome, sometimes the sound mixers will be off or
>> working against each other. I seem to notice this problem more
>> with SB Live! cards. This really has also been more of a problem
>> with Mandrake systems, where KDE is the preferred DE, but still
>> is worth a look at.
>> 
> 
> Thanks - yeah I had checked kmix but apparently there was something
> called aumix as well... It had PCM, whatever that is, set to 0 -
> but it helped! The speakers made a barely audible noise!

Well then, I was close, for a change. PCM has to be nailed, all the 
way to the right. You can also adjust the other slide levers to the 
right as they correspond to the device you are receiving sound from 
(like CD-ROM drive). Aumix and Kmix often work against each other. 
This has been a common problem in Mandrake 9.1. When they coexist in 
an installation, Aumix's PCM volume tends to be turned down all the 
way. Go figure.

> Googling around led me to try installing alsa from freshrpms -
> which worked, eventually, and all the modules load correctly - but
> the sound is still weak and scratchy. This system used to get
> pretty loud. Plus, now kmix and kartsd are complaining and using
> too much CPU. No idea what the problem is, been working all
> afternoon on it.

I take it you are interested in working in the KDE environment? aRts 
does take up a lot of CPU. That's the price you pay for its use. Worse 
yet, some GTK+ apps that use sound won't work through aRts, so you 
have to disable it. I'm going through this in getting a GnomeMeeting 
teleconferencing session going with a peer overseas. aRts has to be 
disabled or I get no sound. I decided the overhead with KDE wasn't 
worth it and switched to a lighter DE/WM that doesn't require aRts to 
hog my CPU. ALSA seems to be working fine under XFce, as does esd, if 
needed.

> thanks for the reply

Your welcome. Glad I could give you some insight. I'm not sure if I 
had any real answer for you, though. :0(

Paul