Edge Computing Division Users Forum

[Edited 2014-08-25 — solution added]
Hardware Configuration

IPC2 ("IPC-D2X2-C3337NL-H500-WB-XLM-FM4U-BMint Desktop" — what a mouthful!). I upgraded it to 16GB RAM and a 512GM SSD. I was disappointed not to be able to obtain the i7 version

I got a second monitor today and realized one more reason why I wanted the i7 — it has 2xHDMI and 1xDisplay port and my "MintBox2" only has one of each.

Anyway, the two (Samsung) monitors are connected:

• 23" monitor — HDMI to DVI adapter then DVI cable to the monitor.
• 24" monitor — Display Port to HDMI adapter then HDMI cable to the monitor.

The 23" monitor has HDMI and DVI connections.
The 24" monitor has HDMI, DB-15 (VGA?) and audio connectors.

I am running Linux Mint 17 - XFCE (completely up to date).

Problem

I have the audio-out from the IPC2 plugged into an external amplifier (an older Nakamichi receiver). This worked excellently and I was very happy... until I connected the second monitor (the 24" one with the audio connector). At that point I got no sound.

I guessed what had happened. When I unplugged the cable from the IPC2 and plugged it into the audio-out from the 24" monitor (and cranked up the volume), I got the sound. BUT it is... awful.

So it looks like the IPC2 is detecting the presence of an audio line and turning off its audio-out jack. This is just a guess, but that would account for my results.

Question

Does anyone know a way I can force the audio to go to the IPC2's audio-out jack?

Solution

There are either defects in Linux Mint 17 (or Pulse Audio) OR things are rather obscure — I suspect the former.

Here is how I resolved the issue (I now have my nice sound back again!):

1. Launch PulseAudio (can be done from the PulseAudio Volume Control if you have that installed in a panel; otherwise, from the Whisker Menu or whatever menu you use — probably under "Multimedia").
2. Click on the "Configuration" tab.
3. "Built-in Audio" will show as "Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output", possibly one of the variations. Change that to "Analog Stereo Output + Digital Stereo (IEC958) Input".
4. Launch a terminal window and enter the following command:

   Code: Select all

   sudo pkill pulseaudio

   (enter your password if prompted for it). This kills (stops) the pulseaudio daemon which restarts within a few seconds.

Clearly a different choice will need to be made in the second-last step if you are using digital rather than analogue stereo.

I can't do any testing because I haven't been able to buy the IPC2 i7 that I want yet ... but on another distro (Ubuntu) with other hardware I have seen similar behaviour i.e. the presence of a (real) HDMI output results in the creation of an additional audio output and it is unknown exactly how the OS decides which audio output to default to on startup.

So if you find out anything, please post it.

I don't know whether on Ubuntu it is necessary to kill the pulseaudio daemon though.

In my case there are three choices of audio out viz. built-in speakers (low quality sound, prefer not to use), speakers attached to monitor (there aren't any hence no sound), speakers attached to line out (better quality).

Wow...
That worked! Thank you.

I couldn't figure out what you meant by whisker menu and LM 17 sound menu has nothing that will help.

I installed pavucontrol which had the config and subsequent "Analog Stereo Output + Digital Stereo (IEC958) Input" option in config.

Fixed!

ty1 wrote:Wow...
That worked! Thank you.

I couldn't figure out what you meant by whisker menu and LM 17 sound menu has nothing that will help.

I installed pavucontrol which had the config and subsequent "Analog Stereo Output + Digital Stereo (IEC958) Input" option in config.

Fixed!

I had assumed pavucontrol was installed.

Really pleased you guys have fixed the problem...

Sadly I have the same or a very similar unsolved issue with a new : IPC i7, 8Gb memory, 256Gb SSD running mint 17.1. I have an 21 inch Asus VS228HR attached by DVI from the monitor to DVI HDMI adapter in the HDMI display port of the PC.

With the IPc-i7 connected to any kind of analogue output, amp or headphones I can see the test sound registering in PulseAudio but get no sound.

Changing to 'Analog Stereo Output + Digital Stereo (IEC958) Input" and restarting the pulseaudio process doesn't do the trick. Still no sound.

I also looked at a posting on https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3459; the suggested additional step of picking Digital Output on the standard Sound menu didn't fix it either.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Many thanks Nigel