Sound not working well on Apple Mac Pro

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description didn't include enough information.

Please include the information requested from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments.

Dear Anrew,

Please find attached a file with the hole information as requested in order to treat the bug. I hope it can be usefull.

Thank you very much!!

Kind Regards.
Sergio Rodríguez

Thanks for the info. This bug may also be related to bug 87253, a Macbook Pro sound problem.

I'm not sure if it is the same bug as I have no sound from the headphone output neither.

Should I test the patch file?

Already fixed and pushed to Ben two days ago.

Are you sure that sound issues are fixed already for the Apple MacPro?

I'm just running 2.6.20-12-generic, but without proper sound output. Seems the needed patched aren't applied, yet.

This maybe of interest: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/14/43
Especially the Line:
  [ALSA] hda-codec (realtek): add support for MacPro series workstations

Would be great if this could get into the feisty kernel before release.
This should be the last issue in getting the MacPro to be fully supported.

There are several revisions, each with different pin configurations. It's not finalised upstream in ALSA, so I've held off backporting all the fixes. (In the past week there have been two separate revisions.) Feisty will ship whatever's currently available by kernel freeze.

This issue is affecting me too. As of today's updates, the audio level is very low.

Does the recent beta freeze mean that Feisty is going to ship with this bug?

eljefe6, that's correct. Fixes are in ubuntu-2.6.git.

Daniel - Sorry to be a bit dense and ask a follow up question. I asked if Feisty was going to ship without fixing the bug. You said yes, the fix is in ubuntu.git. Does that mean that the bug is fixed and awaiting release with Feisty? Or does that mean we need to manually patch our kernels/alsa somehow and Feisty is shipping without the bug fix? Thanks.

You should see this fix appear in the Feisty Beta series.

The Mac Pro and Macbook Pro issues aren't related (they use different sound chipsets).

I originally reported the issue to the ALSA developer list, and received a patch. A Mac Pro driver fix is included in ALSA 1.0.14rc2 (but this version requires a "model=macpro" module argument). 1.0.14rc3 detects the Mac Pro (and sets the mixer channels correctly) out-of-the-box.

I have not verified that the changes pushed towards Linus and the kernel mailing list actually include the Mac Pro fix, but the correct description is present in the changes.

I noticed that there was an alsa update in today's updates. However, I am still getting the very low sound volume. Has the fix for this bug come out yet?

I have still been compiling ALSA drivers by hand, and because of other critical kernel bugs (ACPI), I can't use Ubuntu kernels newer than 2.6.20-12 on my Mac Pro, so I don't have a way to test. I know ALSA 1.0.14rc3 includes the updated drivers for Mac Pros.

Shaw - Could you be so kind as to post those instructions or post a link about how to do that?

Here are some quick instructions. Start with a system with a recent kernel and ALSA configured normally (standard Ubuntu installation). At this point you'll have a GNOME mixer that works but the volume will be way too low. Then make sure you have the following things installed (I may be forgetting a few but configure will tell you about them):

* normal compiler stuff (build-essential package)
* kernel headers for your kernel (linux-headers-<yourkernelversion> package)

Download the ALSA driver archive (you won't need alsalib or alsautils) from the ALSA site (ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.14rc3.tar.bz2). Extract and build the drivers for just the hda-intel card:

% tar xvjf alsa-driver-1.0.14rc3.tar.bz2
% cd alsa-driver-1.0.14rc3
% ./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
% make -j 8
% sudo make install

"make -j 8" is nice on a Mac Pro. :) After you run "sudo make install" some newer modules will be copied into /lib/modules/<yourkernelversion>, and you'll need to unload the old ones, then reload the newer hda-intel to start using it. Or you could reboot and you're done, but reloading isn't too hard. To reload:

* Close any applications that are using the old snd-hda-intel module (mixers, music players, etc.).
* Remove the old snd modules. I use a command like:
% lsmod |grep ^snd | cut -f 1 -d " " |xargs sudo rmmod
* Load the new module:
% modprobe snd-hda-intel

Now everything should work. When you reboot, the newer modules should load automatically. If you install a new kernel (via apt-get upgrade or however), you'll have to repeat this process from the "./configure" step on.

Hopefully my formatting survives the Launchpad submission.

Thanks. Your instructions worked perfectly. After the reboot I have to re-install my Nvidia drivers. Other than that everything went well.

I have went months without sound. Its funny how much you need/want sound on computers nowadays.

Hi, I'm running 2.6.21rc6 and sound works fine!
My Kernel Packages can be found at: https://secure.netzblock.org/helpdesk/macpro/wiki/LinuxKernelDownload

After downloading a new kernel, you may need to run "make clean" before running the make. This is only if you are using a previously extracted directory.

Here are the steps again:
./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
make clean
make -j 8
sudo make install

Then reboot.

I also get very soft sound on a "macpro".

Below is some diagnostic information which may help.

$ uname -a
Linux macpro2-linux 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 29 19:28:32 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lspci | grep "High Def"
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB High Definition Audio Controller (rev 09)

$ lsmod | grep -i snd
snd_hda_codec_realtek 267396 1
snd_hda_intel 38024 5
snd_hda_codec 87680 2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 17160 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss 52256 0
snd_mixer_oss 25088 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 98824 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_oss 43648 0
snd_seq_midi_event 16768 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 67744 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 33424 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 16660 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd 83400 21 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 16800 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 18576 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

$ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0
Codec: Realtek ALC889A
Address: 0
Vendor Id: 0x10ec0885
Subsystem Id: 0x106b0c00
Revision Id: 0x100103
No Modem Function Group found
Default PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Default Amp-In caps: N/A
Default Amp-Out caps: N/A
GPIO: io=2, o=0, i=0, unsolicited=1, wake=0
  IO[0]: enable=1, dir=1, wake=0, sticky=0, data=1, unsol=0
  IO[1]: enable=1, dir=1, wake=0, sticky=0, data=1, unsol=0
Node 0x02 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x11: Stereo
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Node 0x03 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x11: Stereo
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Node 0x04 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x11: Stereo
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Node 0x05 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x11: Stereo
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Node 0x06 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x211: Stereo Digital
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  Digital: Enabled
  Digital category: 0x0
  PCM:
    rates [0x5e0]: 44100 48000 88200 96000 192000
    bits [0x1e]: 16 20 24 32
    formats [0x1]: PCM
Node 0x07 [Audio Input] wcaps 0x10011b: Stereo Amp-In
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x10, nsteps=0x2e, stepsize=0x03, mute=1
  Amp-In vals: [0x2e 0x2e]
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  SDI-Select: 0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
    formats [0x1]: PCM
  Connection: 1
     0x24
Node 0x08 [Audio Input] wcaps 0x10011b: Stereo Amp-In
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x10, nsteps=0x2e, stepsize=0x03, mute=1
  Amp-In vals: [0x2e 0x2e]
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  SDI-Select: 0
  PCM:
    rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000
    bits [0xe]: 16 20 24
  ...