Bug 6209

Summary: [MinnowMax] Alsa playback is silent
Product: [Build System, Metadata & Runtime] BSPs Reporter: Darren Hart <dvhart>
Component: bsps-meta-intelAssignee: Darren Hart <dvhart>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact:
Severity: normal    
Priority: Medium CC: carlos.e.navarro.palos, danders, sjolley.yp.pm, tom.zanussi
Version: 1.6   
Target Milestone: Future   
Hardware: MinnowBoard Max   
OS: Multiple   
Whiteboard:
OS type for building Yocto: --- Type of Regression: ---
Verified: Documentation change: No (bug/feature does not impact docs)

Description Darren Hart 2014-04-22 20:51:03 UTC 
This is the OS side of Bug 6185

Using intel-corei7-64 as of firmware:
MNW2_IFWI_X64_D_2014_04_22_1659.zip

We can detect the audio device.

root@intel-corei7-64:~# dmesg | grep sound
[    8.566287] sound hdaudioC0D2: autoconfig: line_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:line
[    8.566291] sound hdaudioC0D2:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.566295] sound hdaudioC0D2:    hp_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.566298] sound hdaudioC0D2:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    8.566300] sound hdaudioC0D2:    dig-out=0x4/0x5
[    8.566303] sound hdaudioC0D2:    inputs:


Interestingly, alsa only lists device 3 below, while dmesg mentions C0D2 above (Card 0, Device 2):

We appear to have one digital output device as expected:
root@intel-corei7-64:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: ID 2882 Digital [ID 2882 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Alsamixer detects an S/PDIF Playback device and nothing else, which seems appropriate.

Unfortunately, I don't hear anything when testing this device:

root@intel-corei7-64:/etc# speaker-test -t sine -f 1000 -D "hw:0,3" -c2

speaker-test 1.0.27.2

Playback device is hw:0,3
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Sine wave rate is 1000.0000Hz
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 64 to 16384
Period size range from 32 to 8192
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 4096
was set buffer_size = 16384
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.638792
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.973074
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Comment 1 Tom Zanussi 2014-04-22 21:09:43 UTC 
I used to run across this regularly when testing audio - the problem being that the volume was all the way down.  Doing something like:

amixer set master 60

or 

amixer set master 100 unmute

would usually do the trick (To test I just cat'ed a .wav file to the device).

Probably not the problem, but might be worth a try.
Comment 2 Darren Hart 2014-04-22 21:18:47 UTC 
In this case, we only have digital output - which tends not to have a volume control, and I have confirmed it is unmuted. Just in case, I tried:

root@intel-corei7-64:/etc# amixer set IEC958 100 unmute
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]

Note that there is no "Master" control, nor a "PCM" control - which concerns me.

Note: no PCM playback devices listed here:
# aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)

There are at least a hardware device... maybe I have to use a plugin to get a pcm?
# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: ID 2882 Digital [ID 2882 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I've tried using hw:0,3 directly, but have also tried the nuc asound.conf using the dmixer plugin:

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

pcm.dmixer {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    ipc_key_add_uid 0
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:0,3"    # HDMI CARD AND DEVICE
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 8192
        rate 48000 #or 44100
    }
}

ctl.dmixer {
    type hw
    card 0
}
Comment 3 Darren Hart 2014-04-24 23:30:47 UTC 
There may be some issue related to the HDD (?) (detect) line being active low per the GOP driver expectations, and all the other devices Dave Anders has worked with use active high. Something to discuss...
Comment 4 Darren Hart 2014-06-05 23:14:55 UTC 
This is Yocto-specific as some of the more current distros work out of the box.
Comment 5 Darren Hart 2014-06-23 16:40:07 UTC 
As of:

# dmidecode | grep "BIOS Information" -A3
BIOS Information
	Vendor: Intel Corp.
	Version: MNW2CRB1.X64.0071.D30.1406171531
	Release Date: 06/17/2014

No ALSA devices are detected at all. I veried that this image (Yocto 5/13 image) works as initially described below on the Intel E3815 NUC, so I suspect something has changed in firmware to have broken audio.
Comment 6 Darren Hart 2014-07-24 23:30:10 UTC 
The asound.conf workaround is still needed, but the firmware as of 7/10 and later are now working. Marking this as resolved, and the OS side of things will be resolved in Bug 6362.
Comment 7 Stephen K Jolley 2015-01-15 23:09:53 UTC 
Firmware fix is done.