I recently installed an Nvidia-based Asus video card; I also have an Asus Xonar sound card. Until I installed the video card, sound had been working perfectly; my workstation is connected to a stereo receiver via a Toslink cable and it has been delivering glorious 5.1 sound.

To install the video card, I had to re-arrange cards: the Xonar is no longer in the same slot because that slot is now obscured by the video card. At this point, the PulseAudio volume meter actually shows sound being generated, and I've just disabled the sound on the monitor (thanks to a posting here). The receiver and speakers are still working correctly because I can switch to Tuner and pick up radio stations and broadcast sound. The receiver is not muted and I've disabled the Nvidia in PulseAudio ... but I still can't get sound over the sound card.

I know I caused this, and I think I know why I still don't have sound--probably a configuration file or entry which is still pointing at the wrong location--but finding and solving it has escaped me.

For starters, I have uploaded the output of my alsa-info to http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=439864...54f8cae047b5a7.

Your post clearly shows both Xonar and Nvidia sound cards, as well as onboard audio.
The nvidia is the HDMI output.

I see you are on Fedora 32 so I will assume gnome. Have you gone into the settings --> sound and checked which device is chosen there for sound output.? The addition of a new device (the video card) combined with relocation on the PCI bus has likely caused it to switch to a different output device. There are also volume settings there that are different than the pulseaudio settings.

Thank you for responding!

Well, not Gnome but Cinnamon, but same as (mostly). And correct: the onboard audio is from an MSI mainboard. What you're suggesting is exactly what I'm thinking: relocating the card to somewhere else on the PCI switched it to a different output device. Thus my thought that something in the conf files is pointing the output at the wrong position on the PCI bus.

Cinnamon Settings ... it shows that I'm using the Analog Output CMI8788 [Oxygen HD Audio] (Xonar DSX). If I select Analog Surround 5.1 Output, Test sound brings up the correct speaker representation, but no sound is generated from any of the speakers; I've also tried speaker-test as CLI, but with the same results. I have VLC open with an MP3 (Paul Simon's Graceland, FWIW), and that shows up under Applications, with audio output set to 95%.

That's because the Xonar sound device is set as Card0, if the Intel/Nvidia was set as Card0, perhaps it would work.

Is there an option in Firmware settings to select default sound device?

I'm not aware of any firmware options; I found a script posted on an ArchLinux forum that referenced a sound configuration script but I think that's unnecessary at this point. Also, as far as reversing cards ... I've made THREE changes that have simplified the situation:
1. I blacklisted the mainboard audio
2. I re-arranged my cards internally
3. I plugged my monitor into the SECOND DisplayPort on the Nvidia card.
I'm not sure what my exact goal was--a miracle, perhaps?--but the result was that I eliminated the Nvidia card. The rearrangement may have been unnecessary, the second ... I don't know, but HDMI and the mainboard audio no longer show up, I still don't have sound, but I still have a working sound meter showing sound output without actually having sound. The regenerated alsa-info was uploaded to http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=449ac2...cd0748ba5cbc15.

What I'm now considering at this point is amixer; regardless of what I run (except --help), it returns the following:

Code:

ALSA lib ctl_pulse.c:706:(_snd_ctl_pulse_open) Unknown field card
amixer: Mixer attach default error: Invalid argument

I'm going to restart and revisit. And I'm out of time this morning...

I'm back up, no change, amixer still generates the same error.

I'm no expert in this arena, but it seems since the Optimus era for laptops, everything goes through the Intel Graphics, my laptop does have both Nvidia and onboard Intel, but not optimus, I switch via a hardware switch while running Windows, then click on the software "OK" to reboot to the other.

It seems this applies for audio also on my unit, the output above tells me the Intel is the default and Nvidia goes through Intel. Perhaps it is the same for newer Desktops.

Is the Xonar going through Intel also?
Perhaps there's a conflict as to who gets to piggyback Intel

Is the Xonar going through Intel? I don't know ... I don't think it did before. I un-blacklisted it to try again.

------ Next morning ------

Okay, I fixed the "cannot open mixer: Invalid argument" error in a...anything: aplay, amixer, alsamixer, etc.; I had thought to modifying the asound.conf file to point directly at the DSX, then commented it out my addition, but commented it out incorrectly. Anyway, I just removed my modifications and did systemctl restart alsa-state to restart alsa, and alsa applications now work.

By the way, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._defaults_node is a great guide for basic use of alsa tools. I know, Arch isn't my distro, but this page is focused solely on alsa.

So, I just now ran alsamixer; it shows a default (PulseAudio) and the Xonar DSX cards. S/PDIF (but not S/PDIF Loopback) was muted. I unmuted S/PDIF ... no change.

I know I don't know everything, but I thought the purpose of the add-in sound card was to provide the sound architecture for managing sound, but you asked if the Xonar is going through the Intel (assuming on-board), which suggests that the onboard architecture still maintains some kind of ... responsibility for processing sound. And remember, this isn't a laptop, it's a mid-tower...

In my example running the $ cat /proc/asound/cards command as quoted below, both sound devices appear to go through the Intel chip. Card0 is [PCH ], Card1 is [NVidia ]. Run that command and see what it shows. Seems to me I've seen it like this for desktops also in other posts.

I'm on a fresh restart ... and I see the Nvidia card is back (gripe ... I'm about to dump it 'cause it's quickly becoming a boat anchor).

If I understand this correctly, the Nvidia card goes through the Intel chip, but the DSX card does not.

Currently, various iterations of speaker-test throw
suggesting that something else is hogging the channel (per https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-using-arecord).

Before I installed the Nvidia card, sound worked perfectly and I could have sound coming from multiple sources...

One thing I would do, which I don't recall you mentioning. Pull the Xonar and see if Nvidia HDMI works, sound should come through Intel, Intel needs to be enabled. If you get it working that way, then plug in the Xonar.

Sorry, I've been busy all week and haven't had more than a few minutes to look at this mornings before work; now, it's Friday afternoon, and I have a few minutes.

I thought I noted that, with the Nvidia installed, my monitor speaker worked--tinny/squeaky and horribly unlistenable--and that the monitor was connected to a DisplayLink port on the card; without having done anything to the configuration, I have to assume that you're correct, that it was piggybacked on Intel, and the cat /proc/asound/cards I posted appears to confirm that ... I would not have known that. By contrast, the Xonar is connected to my AV receiver using a Toslink cable, and the same /proc/asound/cards output notes the AV200 link, not the Intel.

At this point, I decided to removed the video card; I've double checked and found that I had not disabled audio in the BIOS ... it is now definitely disabled, so that should also eliminate the Intel link. Because of "mitigating circumstances", I also replaced the Toslink cable to make sure it wasn't the previous cable; it wasn't. I'm trying to simplify this problem: because I moved the sound card to make room for the video card, that's why I removed the video card (I'm not a gamer); we'll see if, after sound is restored, I try re-installing it (not as important as I thought it was). Finally, Alsa and PulseAudio utilities are all working, the asound.conf is back to what it was (thanks to record keeping), /etc/pulse/default.pa was corrected to reflect the correct location of the Xonar DSX, and PA tools all show audio playback ... but there's still no sound. That suggests that there's something in the config pointing at the wrong location, and I haven't been able to locate it.

Good post, thanks!