The volume when using the internal speakers on my Thinkpads (T410s and T420s) is rather low when running Linux. In Gnome, the volume can be increased beyond 100% which is useful, especially when listening to things over the speakers that were recorded at a low level and not properly normalized / boosted.

Is there a way to either:

1. Set KDE so that 100% actually utilizes the full range of volume that is available in the hardware.

2. Increase the volume beyond 100% like in Gnome (it's kind of silly, 100% should be the maximum volume and should be available without having to go beyond 100%).

Can you increase it more than in KMix using alsamixer? Do you use PulseAudio?

alsamixer tops out at 100%. pulseaudio is installed. I can't even find how to open the gnome volume control from KDE (Gnome desktop is installed) because gnome-volume-control is no longer available in Gnome 3.2.

try this - open kmix -> mixer and make sure pcm slider is set at max (there may be 2)

if the pcm slider is not shown then settings -> configure channels and add it

no idea why but on my pc this makes a big volume difference even when the master is set to max

Settings > Configure Channels

is not available in kmix on this system. I have KDE 4.7.3 installed. I only have one slider for Master Channel.

I did discover a nice setting though:

Settings > Configure Kmix

Restore volumes on login

Going to put a check in that option. Can you think of anything that would need to be configured to reveal PCM slider? I have many more sliders available on my Macbook Air.

do you have gmixer installed? can you install it? it doesn't run in system tray but does run - in preferences you should be able to enable pcm slider

gmixer is not available in Fedora 16. i checked alsamixer, switched sound card from PulseAudio to HDA Intel and PCM is available there and already set to 100%.

try changing the phonon backend

is this a problem in all audio/video apps or only certain ones?

Sound throughout entire system is not as loud as it should be over the speakers when volume is set to max (although headphone jack is plenty loud). I'll try phonon-backend-vlc, although I know from Fedora 15 that phonon-backend-xine didn't add any extra channels or fix the volume issue.

*edit: changing backend did not help.

tried adding

Code: Select all

options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad

to: /etc/modprobe.d/dist-alsa.conf

after reboot, still no love

found this http://userbase.kde.org/Sound_Problems

After an update, PulseAudio gives you very low volume
PulseAudio has a 'normaliser' function which can cause this. To turn it off, set flat-volumes = no in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

and this http://mytechrants.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... l-too-low/ which seems to allow > 100% (where >100% would add/increase distortion)

For fedora:
$ sudo yum install alsa-utils
run
$ alsamixer -c 0
and increase the master volume beyond green area to the red area

Thank you. First suggestion didn't change anything. alsamixer was already able to go into the red.

Install the pusleaudio volume control, yum install pavucontrol, and check the setting in there. Also test with different settings in the devices tab.

all settings are at 100% in pavucontrol.

find your kmixrc file

find / -name kmixrc

for me it is in /home/myname/.kde4/share/config/kmixrc

don't forget the dot "." before .kde4 or .kde because it is a hidden file

to edit file: sudo vi /home/myname/.kde4/share/config/kmixrc

press "i" to insert and add this line at the top under [Global]

VolumeOverdrive=true

now restart kmix or just restart your computer

while the onscreen volume still shows 100%, it is actually going to 153%, you should be able to notice that it's louder

if you need proof you can install pavucontrol with sudo apt-get install pavucontrol and that volume slider will show the 153%, but this step isn't needed. Kmix is going to 153% also. I promise ;p