Do I need a new sound card? If so, suggestion?

**Phases** · January 27th, 2010

OK, so I moved (fresh install) from 8.04 to 9.10 because it was getting pretty buggy and I was hoping it would fix some sound issues I was having due to some podcasts I do.

Well, the sound is, if anything, worse. So. I'm wondering what I need to do. Am I just using bad drivers or should I get a card?

When Ubuntu starts, the startup sound skips a bit. 8.04 Didn't do that.
When I record skype calls one of us is in right ear, one in left. If I change it to both coming out of both, it seems to sound worse when we both talk - but either way, when we both talk, it cuts one of us out rather than just mixing the two together.

I have mix unchecked, but they still faintly hear whatever other sounds is playing besides the phone call. On 8.04 I could hit 'mix' and make it all mix in together and uncheck it and they'd hear nothing else.

I guess I'm not sure if I'm using pulse or alsa. Whatever is out of the box, but then I installed alsa-gui of some sort to get the mic working, though the GUI gives an error when I load it.

SO. Any advice would be appreciated. I realize this is sorta vague so whatever you need to ask, ask.. I guess I'm hoping a simple "yeah go get a (cheap) card cuz yours sucks" might be the answer, though I'm certainly open to someone helping me figure out why it sucks - if it can be fixed.

Here is my mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131540

If I do, does anyone know of a inexpensive but good enough sound card that will be supported fine?

Thanks for any help.

**Phases** · January 27th, 2010

[Edit, didn't do...]

**Phases** · January 27th, 2010

No one?

**AlexZaim** · January 27th, 2010

Have you done all the updates?
Sometimes abvious things matter most.

See if installing the latest pulseaudio driver from theyr official site fixes your problem.

my ver is

Code:

pulseaudio --version
pulseaudio 0.9.19

all works ,fine. Not perfect but ok.

**Phases** · January 27th, 2010

Appreciate your reply! I just checked, I'm at version 0.9.19 too..

Do you (or anyone) know if this would be easy to set up:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Rocketfi...&skuId=9180405

I found one thread on it, which someone was having trouble, but it's old. Someone else eventually posted and said they got it working but didn't explain how.

Edit: Ah but it looks like we're behind..

http://pulseaudio.org/

**Phases** · January 28th, 2010

Ok, so yesterday I had bought the card linked above, but it didn't work at all, loud static only.

I just upgraded pulseaudio to:

Code:

phases@phases78w1:~$ pulseaudio --version
pulseaudio 0.9.21

by following the first bit of this.

and upgraded alsa to:

Code:

phases@phases78w1:~$ cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.22.1.
Compiled on Jan 28 2010 for kernel 2.6.31-17-generic (SMP).

by following (after several failed tutorials.. this was great!) this.

I'm not at home but the wife said sound is working fine. Course, it was fine to her before so I'll have to test more later but - she did say on reboots it doesn't static/stutter before the default login sound now so.. it seems to have helped at least a little.

So hopefully it will fix it, or if not maybe the card I bought will work. If not I'll return it and SHOULD be able to use this, as alsa's site says it got support in 21, which I just updated past. (minus a couple advanced features)

/crosses fingers.