MEPIS Community Forum

roky: ha ha.

Last time I'll hijack this thread, I promise. But the repair thing had me going ballistic today at the service desk of a major electronics outlet in the U.S. (initials "B B") about my laptop by a major manufacturer (initial "D") experiencing a known hardware malfunction. I first gave up and came home to compose a long post for ML on whether I was unreasonable to make a scene. I thought maybe they had a point about having to deal with servicing Linux software. But I went back to insist mine was a *hardware* issue limited entirely to how the machine powers up. I didn't want them booting into Linux for that at all and wouldn't even give them my password. They relented. But maybe I was going too far and just confirmed their idea of Linux users as crazy people.

I'll bet that was fun. Tell us more...

Ooops. Didn't see you had posted this.

You must understand that you're dealing with drones, idiots, and thieves at BB. There's no reason a repair of any sort under a D warranty should take anything like 2-3 weeks. Truth is, they don't want to deal with it, and they'll do anything they can to blow you off, operating system notwithstanding.

I do computer repairs on the side, and am just infuriated when I hear and see what the GS at BB does to people. There's nothing wrong with charging a fair (or even a steep) price for good, responsible service, but these guys don't even come close. I don't use the term "thieves" lightly, but it applies to them.

The few times I have sent a system in for repair, I have removed the HDD and included a note telling the tech's that I have done so for data security reasons. This negates the running Linux issue.

uncle mark & sdbingm,

Am I not going to get in trouble from a mod by going on about this here? Regardless, here goes:

Removing the HDD may be the answer I've been looking for. The case I made to the GS technician was that no Linux user would ever be able to have a box serviced for *anything* at BB because their definition of "software related" was so elastic as to include everything up to a busted lid hinge. This leads me to ask somewhere here at ML where Linux folk get most of their repairs done. (So far I've been lucky and have handled my own repairs, mainly with duct tape.) But to be clear: I'm not sure the GS chap was wrong. I don't know that I want any run-of-the-mill technician fingering my Linux partition, and insisting on it at BB may have been shooting myself in the foot. What I expect in a couple of weeks is a laptop returned to me unfixed (or "differently broken"), with the excuse that they TOLD me I shouldn't be submitting a Linux system to them in the first place.

So I'm ambivalent about the whole thing...

Edit: One more thing. The problem with the D is the infamous "system can't recognize AC adapter" flag during power-on. It's a hardware glitch affecting Dells all over the place and is everywhere on the internet as a known issue. But what I'm expecting is a non-resolution of the problem with the excuse that it must be Linux related.

Okay, let's get back to headphone sound before I get spanked by an admin.

I probably wouldn't have thought of taking out the hard disk. If you want to continue this, start a thread and link back to this page as explanation.

Hi, just a quick update (something which I should have done a few days ago but didn't have the time).

The headphone problem is now fixed!!

How did I fix it? Well I found that if you add the two following lines at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m6
options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=1

Nothing happens.

But if you take one extra step and add "options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m6" to /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel.conf or to be precise, replace "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" with it, then the headphone problem is as good as fixed!

For reference, I found the solution here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... s-16-2688/ but note that my specs are way lower than custangro's (the author of that post). Also note that this solution is hardware specific.

Thanks to everyone who've helped.

bk_7312:

Great diagnostic post. I'd fiddled with lots of modifications to alsa-base.conf without success. But I think you're on to something now. When (if) I get my laptop back, I'll (a) install antiX 11, then (b) try out your solutions if the headphones still don't work. I'll post the results.

My final update on this sound issue: Success!

Installing antiX 11 on the Dell Inspiron has solved the problem with headphone sound. I suppose there are too many variable from system to system to account for headphone problems with some systems but not others. Maybe upgrading the kernel or fiddling with settings in /etd/modprobe.d will solve it for some people. But sometimes it's just jumping to the next version release.