Hi all,

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 to run some simulations for my final year uni dissertation in my laptop. Anyway, I've got an annoying issue with the sound on it. If I plug headphones in the sound comes out of both the speakers and the headphones. If I do the same thing in either Windows 7 or 8 it routes the sound as you'd expect.

I've had a look at the settings but can't see anything that would let me change this. It's driving me insane as I can't listen to music in public places at home or uni and then get distracted really easily!

Forgot to add, it's had various versions of *NIX on it in the past, and it's never done it with them either. I think this current install started off at version 10/11 and got updated, but I don't recall it being an issue before.

If anyone's got any idea I'm listening!

Thanks,

Joe.

Edited 15 November, 201213 yr by TriggerFish

Have you tried going into the sound settings? You can mute the normal output & headphone outputs separately.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I've looked in there and all I've got is the attached. If I mute the buttom option all sound stops. If I select the top option, I hear nothing (as it's not connected). That's what's throwing me, there's no differentation between outputs.

Edited 16 November, 201213 yr by TriggerFish

Trigger, with the headphone plugged in and some music playing, can you then see your headphone controls shown in the sound settings? Headphone will only show up when the headphones are in use. Does the sound 'test' button give you a normal sound test if you use that. If you cannot adjust it from there then read on.

There are some other controls buried in the depths on the OS. I'm not sure if they will tell you anything but it is worth checking. Open a Terminal...use Ctr > Alt > T to do this. Then type: 'alsamixer' (no quotes) and press enter. You should see something like the picture below, but for a 'Stereo System'. There may be something in there that is switched on and it shouldn't be. Probably it's the 'surround sound' setting that is on and it should be off if you are on a laptop. To switch it off use the left and right arrows on your keyboard to move the red selector along the row of settings. Select 'surround sound' and push the 'M' button. This will turn of the surround sound. This should solve your problem. You don't need surround sound on your laptop, it's for 5.1 sound etc. Post back if you still have a problem. Good luck.

Edited 20 November, 201213 yr by Estate Man

Thanks for the reply.

With headphones plugged in I get as shown above - just the speakers. If I run a sound test then I get the left/right options, which then work as expected (via both headhpones and speakers at once). I guess the left/right rules out the surround sound mode setting, though I'll check it anyway.

It's odd, got me stumped completely! I did have SSD running in here for a while, and I'm trying to rememeber if I had the same issue or not. I think I did, but can't remember either way. If I did, then I guess that points away from a config setting?

Cheers, will give the alsa stuff a go. Vaugely remember when I first got the laptop at the start of my degree having issues finding drivers for the audio, but it's worked fine between then/now. I did have it plugged into the TV via HDMI for a while, so maybe that sent it into a tizz if it tried to send sound as surround? Either way, when I boot it up in Ubuntu next I'll give it a bash.

If I can't fix it, it's not the end of the world, it's just annoying to sit there in silence when working, which then leads me to distractions (I have a terrible attention span!). Maybe it's the excuse I've been looking for to upgrade to a newer i7-based machine?

PulseAudio Volume Control is installable through Synaptic or the Software Centre and that makes it easier to set up what plays/records sound where. This is extra to the default volume control and has a lot more flexibility - for example my son uses it to have Skype play through his USB headset while other apps use the speakers.

Edited 21 November, 201213 yr by dbg400

That sounds worth a look! I get quite annoyed with the way it doesn't reroute skype sounds, and if it fixes the main issue. . . Thanks

Checked the alsa thing - got this:

If I mute either option, everything goes quite. I think tried the pulse audio as Martin suggested, it had 'analogue stereo output' and 'analogue stereo duplex' as options (and some digital GPU stuff). These made no difference, except I now have sound only from the headphones. If I unplug those, it goes mute completely (although the setting isn't on mute). so I uninstalled it again, hoping to restore sound. The sound devices using the default audio manager are the same as before.

This is a better situation though as at least I can be around people still!

Very odd!

*Edit* Sound is now back out of both at once.

Edited 22 November, 201213 yr by TriggerFish

Trigg, pull the PCM slider control down to zero. Going from memory it will shut off either phones or speaker volume (can't remember which). But it may solve the problem. Don't alter the speaker setting volume.

Will try, just out of curiosity.

I got a bit carried away on Dells black Friday deals and bought myself a new i7 laptop, so the issue is kinda gonna now. Finally I'll be able to have more than a few tabs open without it overheating/crashing!

Thanks for the help though!