F15: Volume level starts at almost full blast

[stan]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:35:53 -0500
jonetsu <jonetsu at teksavvy.com> wrote:

>   I have one F15-64 bit machine on which the volume has to be very
> close to the minimum as it seems to attain full volume very, very
> early.  Not much play in there. when pushed to the max there is some
> 'hardware noise' as it is very over-driven. I do not recall having
> this problem before a recent update on that machine.  Another F15
> 64-bit machine does not show this limited rage at all and has a nice
> volume control. 
> 
>   Would this be a hardware problem or is there something in a
> recent update that would mess the audio in such a way when seeing some
> specific hardware ?

It is unlikely to be hardware related.  It might be a regression in
the alsa driver for that specific device, especially if the one that
works has different hardware.  In this case, I recommend you open a
bugzilla for alsa lib for the specific hardware that is failing.  That
will get pushed upstream to alsa and fixed.  Can you adjust the volume
in alsamixer?

Alternatively, it might be that PulseAudio is set to default to a very
high level of amplitude on that system, so that it automatically boosts
all volumes to the requested level.  In this case, use one of the PA
setting tools to adjust the defaults.  And before you ask, no, I don't
know the tool to use, but there has to be one.  A web search should
reveal it.

Or it could be that PA has a regression.  Again, a bugzilla will be
pushed upstream and fixed.

For what it is worth, I run F15 x86_64 and have noticed no issues with
sound at all, though my hardware is old non hda-intel stuff which
hasn't much development, if any, being done. i.e. stable  To me this
implies that it is one of the first two causes.