[ltp] t520 speakers seem weak

[Steven J. Owens]

On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:53:39PM +0100, Richard Neill wrote:
> 
> >      My lovely, top-of-the-line thinkpad t520 has finally arrived. I
> >installed ubuntu and fired it up and... wow, those speakers are quiet.
> >Am I doing something wrong here?  My t43p didn't have the loudest
> >speakers in the world, but I could at least hear stuff
> >reasonably. This one is barely audible.
> 
> There are at least 3 ways to make a system inaudible, because all
> the volume controls are in "series".

     Much thanks for the thorough list. Unfortunately, I tried them
all with no luck.
 
> Assuming the speakers themselves work ok, try
>    cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp
> which ought to make a very loud noise.

     Tried this, got a "device or resource busy" message.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
puff@redbitter2:~$ sudo cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp
bash: /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy
puff@redbitter2:~$ 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

> A more gentle version is to use the program "speaker-test".

     I did some googling and found this example, which I ran:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
puff@redbitter2:~$ sudo speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav

speaker-test 1.0.22

Playback device is plug:front
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 64 to 1048576
Period size range from 32 to 524288
Using max buffer size 1048576
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 262144
was set buffer_size = 1048576
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 10.959763
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 10.969924
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 10.959913
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 10.959932
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 10.959860
puff@redbitter2:~$ 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

     This output was accompanied by a voice saying "front left" and
"front right" to match the text output.  The voice is still quite
quiet, considering I have the volume up to max.
 
> After this, check:
> 
>   - the BIOS/hardware volume controls (the physical buttons)

     These are up to max:

     - When I press the sound -/+ buttons, a little volume notifier
       pops up in the upper-right corner of the screen.  That notifier
       indicates the volume is at max.

     - When I click on the speaker icon in the upper-right corner of
       the menubar, that also indicates the volume is at max.

     - When I click on the speaker icon in the menubar and select
       "Sound Preferences", the "Sound Preferences" dialog comes up;
       the "Output Volume" control was set somewhere around 2/3, so I
       dragged it all the way to the right. This had no noticable
       effect on the volume.

       Also, interestingly, at various times I've gone back into this
       dialog and found the control was mysteriously set back to the
       lower setting.  I've been unable to reproduce this
       consistently, but it's happened a couple of times.

>   - the state of ALSA (alsamixergui)

     I installed and ran alsamixerui, dragged the volume up to the top,
exited, re-ran speaker-test, same result.

>   - the state of pulseaudio (pavucontrol)

     I installed and ran pavucontrol, selected the Output Devices tab,
and the left and right speakers are both at 100%.  No noticable
effect.

>   - the in app volume control (eg VLC).

     After a mild digression into trying to get amarok to load the
dang mp3s in my collection (hint: enable backports and install amarok
2.4 instead of 2.3)... still no noticable change, the speakers are
still quite low.

>   - the file you are playing.

     The low volume is apparent with system sounds, speaker-test, and
various MP3s.

     In researching another issue (failing to resume from suspend) I
ran across a post where the new T520 owners said the sound was quite
nice, if a little lacking in bass.  Could it be a hardware problem?

-- 
Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com / (412) 401-8060 cell 
| "I'm going to make broad, sweeping generalizations and strong,
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|  - http://darksleep.com/notablog