Very low sound volume on Lenovo X200

[Carl Johnson]

John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> writes:

> I can't get the sound to play above a whisper on my newish laptop.  It
> has two sound channels, one for internal speakers, one for the plug,
> and it's the same problem for both.  Every software sound control, of
> which there are several, is set to the max.  The hardware is fine, it
> works correctly under Windows (sigh.)
>
> Here's dmesg's opinion of what it's got.
>
> hdac0: <Intel 82801I High Definition Audio Controller> mem 0xf2620000-0xf2623fff irq 17 at device 27.0 on pci0
> hdac0: HDA Driver Revision: 20090624_0136
> hdac0: [ITHREAD]
>
> I see that the hda driver has a vast array of options, suggesting that
> something is defaulting wrong.  Any suggestions?
>
> Here's what it's got now, from the pindump:
>
> hdac0: Dumping AFG cad=0 nid=1 pins:
> hdac0:  nid 22 0x042140f0 as 15 seq  0    Headphones  Jack jack  1 loc  4 color   Green misc 0
> hdac0:        Caps:    OUT HP           Sense: 0x7fffffff
> hdac0:  nid 23 0x61a190f0 as 15 seq  0           Mic  None jack  1 loc 33 color    Pink misc 0 [DISABLED]
> hdac0:        Caps: IN             VREF Sense: 0x7fffffff
> hdac0:  nid 24 0x04a190f0 as 15 seq  0           Mic  Jack jack  1 loc  4 color    Pink misc 0
> hdac0:        Caps: IN             VREF Sense: 0x7fffffff
> hdac0:  nid 25 0x612140f0 as 15 seq  0    Headphones  None jack  1 loc 33 color   Green misc 0 [DISABLED]
> hdac0:        Caps:    OUT              Sense: 0x7fffffff
> hdac0:  nid 26 0x901701f0 as 15 seq  0       Speaker Fixed jack  7 loc 16 color Unknown misc 1
> hdac0:        Caps:    OUT    EAPD     
> hdac0:  nid 27 0x40f001f0 as 15 seq  0         Other  None jack  0 loc  0 color Unknown misc 1 [DISABLED]
> hdac0:        Caps:    OUT    EAPD     
> hdac0:  nid 28 0x40f001f0 as 15 seq  0         Other  None jack  0 loc  0 color Unknown misc 1 [DISABLED]
> hdac0:        Caps:    OUT             
> hdac0:  nid 29 0x90a601f0 as 15 seq  0           Mic Fixed jack  6 loc 16 color Unknown misc 1
> hdac0:        Caps: IN                 
> hdac0: NumGPIO=4 NumGPO=0 NumGPI=0 GPIWake=0 GPIUnsol=1
> hdac0: GPIO: data=0x00000000 enable=0x00000000 direction=0x00000000
> hdac0:       wake=0x00000000  unsol=0x00000000    sticky=0x00000000

I am by no means an expert, but I had similar problems previously.
Look at /dev and see if you have multiple /dev/mixer* devices.  You
can use the -f option for mixer to specify the individual devices.  I
found that I had to set the controls on the devices that I wasn't even
using.  In my case, it went from almost completely muted to too loud
and was distorting, so I had to reduce some of the settings.  You can
use sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=1' to set the default mixer device to 1
or whichever you want to use.
-- 
Carl Johnson		carlj at peak.org