I need a sound card recommendation please.

**Druegan** · February 4th, 2010

I'm a linux newbie who's been feuding with audio for some time now.. I'll get it working *kinda*.. for a little while.. then something will bork again and I'm stuck with no sound. I want something that's very likely to "just work" in this situation.. so please, if you can help out here, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm getting a new sound card. I have no idea what kind yet.. which is what I'm asking you all for recommendations on.. but I'm tired of crap that doesn't work, requires me to re-code tons of things to get working, etc.. After the 19th time of running back and forth through every audio tutorial I can find, trying to get either my onboard audio or my SB Live! 7.1 to work, only to never get it to work properly, if at all... I'm frustrated.

I have just purchased a decent set of 5.1 speakers from Logitech. I need a simple soundcard that will work with it.. which amounts, as far as I can tell, to just 3 outputs to connect to the woofer which then goes out to the rest.. But the trick is.. I need the sound card to actually work fully with some recent version of Ubuntu.

I've had a 6 month nightmare with linux audio.. I'm no more knowledgeable than I was starting out, just a heckuva lot more confused. I need something that I can plug in and have it do its bit, with a very minimal amount of fiddling... preferably none.

I'd prefer Jaunty or Karmic.. Actually, at this point, Jaunty is probably preferable since I've had nothing but trouble with Karmic.. but if it'll work, I really don't care.. I just want proper functionality.

This is for a desktop.. running a DFI Lanparty NF4 motherboard..not exactly sure anymore which variant.. far as I'm aware, just a standard PCI slot for the card.

So please, I beg.. can someone recommend me a decent 5.1 supporting audio card that is most likely to "just work" with a fresh install of Jaunty or Karmic? Preferably $100 or less. but at this point, budget might even become secondary to "avoiding frustration" as a concern.

Thanks much,
Druegan

**finlost** · February 4th, 2010

What chipset is your current sound card? I have not had issues with Intel chipsets in the past.

Describe "get it working *kinda*.. for a little while.. then something will bork again and I'm stuck with no sound"?

Are you sure your sound card isn't damaged such as a broken solder? Is the card seated properly to your motherboard? Is your motherboard FUBAR?

**Druegan** · February 4th, 2010

"Getting it working kinda".. means the best I've ever managed to get out of it was one channel, and while I could get sound out of most speakers by duplicating that one channel.. it was kind of lacking.. especially when it came to watching movies where that one channel happened to be sound effects, explosions, music, and *not* the dialogue.

To be perfectly honest.. I'm not looking to fix any of it. I'm looking to get a new sound card that can be made to work, preferably easily. The onboard card never had great sound even under XP, and the SB card is rather ancient. So I'm looking to get something new that will give me some 5.1 surround sound out of this Logitech X-540 speaker system I just picked up.

Preferably without me going through another 6 month nightmare of "try this tweak, watch as it screws up something horribly, try to fix it, etc".

What I need is a recommendation for a sound card, preferably one that's $100 or less.. that has analog audio outputs for front, rear, and center/sub..that will work with Ubuntu. Oh yes.. and one that can be currently purchased. I really don't want to try my chances with some 5+ year old card that can only be gotten used on Ebay.

I don't need anything terribly fancy.. I want to watch some movies and listen to my mp3 collection, and have the 5.1 speaker setup work the way it should.

So has anybody gotten something that matches this description to work with Ubuntu? I really just need a vendor and model number, and something along the lines of "I use it with 9.04 (or somesuch) and it works fine."

Thanks if anybody can help.. I've been looking for 2 days now, and ferreting through all this information is a headache and a half. The ALSA SoundCard Matrix is all well and good... if you're looking for cards that haven't been sold for 5+ years, made by companies no longer in business, or really like pouring over pages on pages of relatively meaningless info and very incomplete tags..

It's just getting frustrating...

**markbuntu** · February 4th, 2010

I have a SIIG Soundwave 7.1 PCI and it works just fine OOB on every distro I have tried, hardy, intrepid, jaunty, karmic, lucid, fedora, suse, mandriva, debian etc and is very cheap. It uses the c-media 8768 chipset. it can do stereo, 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1 has digital in and out., mic and line in which can be switched to outputs for 7.1 handles 44.1k, 48k. 96k it is not an audiophile card but sounds great. They have a 5.1 card that uses a c-media chipset that is even cheaper.

I have never seen anyone asking for help with these cards on the forums here so that should tell you something. They are like $20-40.