Audio device completely missing in 11.10

**OlympicSoftworks** · January 28th, 2012

I am being asked to help a new GNU/Linux user trying to install Ubuntu who is having a hell of a time with his laptop and it's sound. I've never seen something like this before, and I've been using Ubuntu since 6.6.

It is an HP Pavilion dv6500. I've asked him to do a sudo lshw > hardware_loadout and under 11.10 the audio hardware is simply not present. Other than this, the OS is totally stable and he likes it a great deal.

I've asked him to get 10.04 downloaded and installed on a USB stick to boot from in order to do the same LSHW command to see what happens under a different kernel, and sure enough it shows up.

Here is the start of the LSHW from 10.04, it's the same as 11.10 though. I have this here just to show the exact model and MoBo.

ubuntu
description: Notebook
product: HP Pavilion dv6500 Notebook PC
vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version: Rev 1
serial: xxxxxxxx
width: 32 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4 smp-1.4 smp
configuration: boot=oem-specific chassis=notebook cpus=2 uuid=434E4637-3431-3156-4356-001B24B6AE40
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: 30CF
vendor: Quanta
physical id: 0
version: 85.24
serial: None1
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Hewlett-Packard
physical id: 0
version: F.25 (11/29/2007)
size: 110KiB
capacity: 960KiB
capabilities: isa pci pnp upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb agp smartbattery

Here is the interesting part that only shows up under 10.04:

*-multimedia UNCLAIMED
description: Audio device
product: MCP67 High Definition Audio
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 7
bus info: pci@0000:00:07.0
version: a1
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm msi ht cap_list
configuration: latency=0 maxlatency=5 mingnt=2
resources: memory:f6480000-f6483fff

And here is the same device iterated with LSPCI -vvnn

00:07.0 Audio device [0403]: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio [10de:055c] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30cf]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 21
Region 0: Memory at f6480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask+ 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
Masking: 00000000 Pending: 00000000
Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

And here is the same device iterated with LSPCI -vvnn

00:07.0 Audio device [0403]: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio [10de:055c] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30cf]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 21
Region 0: Memory at f6480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask+ 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
Masking: 00000000 Pending: 00000000
Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Under 11.10 slot 00:07.0 this simply isn't iterated. It skips from 00:04.1 to 00:08.0. One other thing that is curious; according to the HP website, this laptop is supposed to have a Conexant chip for sound.

If I could get any help or idea on how to get this guy's sound set up I'd be very appreciative, and he will be even more appreciative still.

**BicyclerBoy** · January 28th, 2012

May be a long shot..
MCP67 has problems with message signalled interrupts especially with audio component.
I think the alsa driver automatically loads MCP67a with snd_hda_intel nomsi option.

But your problem is that the system does not find the h/w so then no driver is loaded..

You could try grub boot option:
pci=nomsi

**MoreOrLess** · January 28th, 2012

So lshw doesn't see it, but lspci does? Does aplay -l find it?

Code:

aplay -l

this laptop is supposed to have a Conexant chip for sound

It probably does. Nvidia doesn't make codecs, they just slap their name in the OEM field

The best way to tell is using alsa info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/AlsaInfo

**OlympicSoftworks** · January 28th, 2012

Thanks for the help folks.

BicyclerBoy, I'll look up what that grub boot option does and try it. Thank you!
pci=nomsi

MoreOrLess, neither LSPCI nor LSHW find the audio hardware in 11.10. But both find it in 10.04. Aplay won't work because there is only a dummy audio device that just sinks the data sent to it and does nothing useful.

I'll ask for them to do use https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/AlsaInfo and see what we get.

The data retrieved in Ubuntu 10.04 show 10de:055c as the device identifier:
vendor: 10de ("NVIDIA Corporation"), device: 055c ("MCP67 High Definition Audio")

I also found this:
http://openbenchmarking.org/linux/PCI/0403/10de:055c

It links to the hardware's page in the database. MoBo #2 is the mobo in question here.

http://openbenchmarking.org/s/NVIDIA...7%20HD%20Audio

So this is NVidia hardware, but it seems to use the Intel HD Audio drivers.

Thanks for the help. I will post again once I get the Alsa info back from them.