I used to have this problem with my Gateway T6834c laptop with Ubuntu 9.04. Now I seem to have solved the issue with my own homebrewed patch (in the attachment). I've sent this patch to the ALSA developers mail- list and got accepted by Takashi Iwai.
The problem, as far as I can tell, is related to EAPD (external amplifier power down), and can be diagnosed with this command (please adjust the card and codec numbers in the command if necessary) $ head -n 20 /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 Codec: SigmaTel STAC9205 Address: 0 Function Id: 0x1 Vendor Id: 0x838476a0 Subsystem Id: 0x107b0560 Revision Id: 0x100204 No Modem Function Group found Default PCM: rates [0x7e0]: 44100 48000 88200 96000 176400 192000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Default Amp-In caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x0f, stepsize=0x05, mute=0 Default Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x7f, nsteps=0x7f, stepsize=0x02, mute=1 GPIO: io=5, o=0, i=0, unsolicited=1, wake=1 IO[0]: enable=1, dir=1, wake=0, sticky=0, data=1, unsol=0 ---- note this line IO[1]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[2]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[3]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[4]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 Analog Loopback: 0x00 Note the line IO[0] in the GPIO section, in STAC9502, this GPIO pin coincides with EAPD pin. (see this pdf datasheet from manufacturer: http://www.idt.com/products/getDoc.cfm?docID=18693776) And if you have the data=0 while your headphone is plugged-in, then the external amplifier is powered down, which effectively mute your headphone. This problem is already solved in the latest alsa-driver 1.0.20 for Gateway T1616, a special "eapd" model is introduced to make sure that EAPD is always on (data=1). So if you can diagnose the same problem as above, just try to force the kernel to use the "eapd" model. There are two ways to do that 1. the quick way, update to latest alsa-driver, and append this line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf options snd-hda-intel model=eapd position_fix=1 2. the once-for-all-and-everybody way, tell the kernel to probe for your Gateway audio chip and adjust to "eapd" model once the kernel knows how to do the job, no conf file tweaking will be necessary. that's what I did in my patch. add this line into the model probing code of the sigmatel STAC9205 driver SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x107b, 0x0560, "Gateway T6834c", STAC_9205_EAPD), the two numbers 0x107b and 0x0560 are from the "Subsystem Id" line from "/proc/asound/card0/codec#0" I'm trying to write a "bigger" patch that supports more STAC9205 Gateway models, so please give me your subsystem id and gateway model number if you diagnose the same problem on your system and you haven't submitted these info above. Thanks! ** Attachment added: "0001-ALSA-hda-Add-quirk-for-Gateway-T6834c-laptop.patch" http://launchpadlibrarian.net/29272107/0001-ALSA-hda-Add-quirk-for-Gateway-T6834c-laptop.patch -- SigmaTel STAC9205: Headphone Jack Not Working https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/306755 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs