no beep any more (SOLVED)

[Matthias Apitz]

I have had a chat in some forum about Chromebooks. The people there are
not willing to help further because "...we only support plain vanilla
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/-MXyMACfcCU;context-place=forum/chromebook-central
At least someone pointed out that these devices only have stereo audio
speakers (which do fine in my case) and no other "pc speaker" on
motherboard. As the speakers do fine, this must be some problem in our
FreeBSD kernel / audio driver, not sending the printf '\7' to the audio
device.

Now, as it was clear, that it was not a hardware issue, I found after
checking the mixer settings, that we have two sound devices:

$ cat /dev/sndstat
Installed devices:
pcm0: <Intel Haswell (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
pcm1: <Realtek (0x0283) (Analog 2.0+HP/4ch)> (play/rec) default

$ mixer -f /dev/mixer0
Mixer vol is currently set to 100:100
Mixer pcm is currently set to 100:100

$ mixer
Mixer vol is currently set to 91:91
Mixer pcm is currently set to 100:100
Mixer speaker is currently set to 100:100
Mixer mic is currently set to 100:100
Mixer rec is currently set to 100:100
Mixer igain is currently set to 0:0
Mixer ogain is currently set to 100:100
Mixer monitor is currently set to 50:50
Recording source: mic, monitor

setting:

$ mixer igain 50
Setting the mixer igain from 0:0 to 50:50.
$ printf "\7"

make it beep

$ mixer igain 0
Setting the mixer igain from 50:50 to 0:0.

switches off the beeping through the stereo speaker; I have no idea what
'igain' has todo with this...

matthias

[Ian Smith]

Post by Matthias Apitz

I have had a chat in some forum about Chromebooks. The people there are
not willing to help further because "...we only support plain vanilla
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/-MXyMACfcCU;context-place=forum/chromebook-central
At least someone pointed out that these devices only have stereo audio
speakers (which do fine in my case) and no other "pc speaker" on
motherboard. As the speakers do fine, this must be some problem in our
FreeBSD kernel / audio driver, not sending the printf '\7' to the audio
device.

Now, as it was clear, that it was not a hardware issue, I found after
$ cat /dev/sndstat
pcm0: <Intel Haswell (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
pcm1: <Realtek (0x0283) (Analog 2.0+HP/4ch)> (play/rec) default
$ mixer -f /dev/mixer0
Mixer vol is currently set to 100:100
Mixer pcm is currently set to 100:100
$ mixer
Mixer vol is currently set to 91:91
Mixer pcm is currently set to 100:100
Mixer speaker is currently set to 100:100
Mixer mic is currently set to 100:100
Mixer rec is currently set to 100:100
Mixer igain is currently set to 0:0
Mixer ogain is currently set to 100:100
Mixer monitor is currently set to 50:50
Recording source: mic, monitor
$ mixer igain 50
Setting the mixer igain from 0:0 to 50:50.
$ printf "\7"
make it beep
$ mixer igain 0
Setting the mixer igain from 50:50 to 0:0.
switches off the beeping through the stereo speaker; I have no idea what
'igain' has todo with this...

Wow, 10/10 for persistence, Matthias .. and this is something I doubt
anyone would have noticed, even had you shown mixer settings earlier. I
guess they must have just used the mixer igain 'slot' for the speaker.

I'm sure we're all glad you managed to solve it, despite our 'help' :)

Two questions: Do values apart than 50 provide different beep volumes,
or is it off/on? And does 'kldload speaker ; spkrtest' work with it?

cheers, Ian

[Matthias Apitz]

Post by Ian Smith
Two questions: Do values apart than 50 provide different beep volumes,
or is it off/on?

You can use any value between 0...100; 50 is to awake all your
colleagues in the office from their dreams, 10 is fine for just noting
that you did something wrong in vim or shell;

Post by Ian Smith
And does 'kldload speaker ; spkrtest' work with it?

with 'kldload speaker' (I compiled even a debug version to understand it)
you get a device /dev/speaker, controlled as well with 'igain' and one can play
tones with something like

# echo CDEFGAB > /dev/speaker

Thanks for supporting me in my persistence

matthias

[James B. Byrne]

On Tue, August 2, 2016 11:59, Ian Smith wrote:
l glad you managed to solve it, despite our 'help' :)

Post by Ian Smith
Two questions: Do values apart than 50 provide different beep volumes,
or is it off/on? And does 'kldload speaker ; spkrtest' work with it?

I am guessing that 50:50 is the balance between right and left. So 0
:0 is nothing. 50:00 might be 50% left 0% right and so forth.

Are values greater than 100 permitted?
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[Matthias Apitz]

Post by Ian Smith
l glad you managed to solve it, despite our 'help' :)

Post by Ian Smith
Two questions: Do values apart than 50 provide different beep volumes,
or is it off/on? And does 'kldload speaker ; spkrtest' work with it?

I am guessing that 50:50 is the balance between right and left. So 0
:0 is nothing. 50:00 might be 50% left 0% right and so forth.

yes, correctly

Post by Ian Smith
Are values greater than 100 permitted?

no, this is a percentage value; check mixer(1) man page;

btw: I have here some funny dialog from the ChromeOS forum where I asked
for some help, not about software but hardware of the C720; it seems
that they do not like that FreeBSD is installed on their beloved
Chromebook :-)

funny to read:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/-MXyMACfcCU;context-place=forum/chromebook-central

Matthias said:

Hello,

The (high-resolution) picture of the mother board of the C720, which can
be found here
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices/acer-c720-chromebook
shows right of the screw 7 a black 2-wire cable, connected to the
motherboard and ending below in some black cylinder. Is this cylinder
the PC-speaker of the C720 (I'm not talking about the stereo laud
speakers) and if so, of which type/manufacture it is? Or is this some
kind of backup battery?




Jim Dantin said:


It's a capacitor that is too large to fit on the circuit board, so they
mounted it on a cable. You can see a second cable with two capacitors
directly above the battery to the left of screw 6.

Replacement ones are commonly available on eBay if you need one.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xc720+capacitor+cable.TRS0&_nkw=c720+capacitor+cable&_sacat=0


...


powermatt said:

In addition to what Jim said; we don't support alternative uses of
Chrome OS hardware for the same reason we don't support third-party
applications; there's no way we could ever cover or know about every
possible interaction of Chrome OS hardware and software. It's not a
reasonable expectation.



Matthias said:

Well, I say thanks for all the comments, the helping ones and the
others, and I could solve the problem with a simple command 'mixer igain 50'.
Re/ the word 'Chromebook', I think that the Acer C720 is such a nice
hardware that it deserves something better than ChromeOS.


powermatt said:

It seems to me you should have purchased a device that better suits
your needs, rather than trying to force a Chromebook to be something it
is not.



Matthias said:

Wrong conclusion of my post; the Acer C720 is one of the best netbooks
I ever purchased and it works fine with FreeBSD.


powermatt said:

You are of course entitled to your opinion.

As this topic does not cover a supported use of the hardware, I am
going to lock it here.

[Ian Smith]

Post by Matthias Apitz

Post by Ian Smith
Two questions: Do values apart than 50 provide different beep volumes,
or is it off/on?

You can use any value between 0...100; 50 is to awake all your
colleagues in the office from their dreams, 10 is fine for just noting
that you did something wrong in vim or shell;

Cool.

Post by Matthias Apitz

Post by Ian Smith
And does 'kldload speaker ; spkrtest' work with it?

with 'kldload speaker' (I compiled even a debug version to understand it)
you get a device /dev/speaker, controlled as well with 'igain' and one can play
tones with something like
# echo CDEFGAB > /dev/speaker
Thanks for supporting me in my persistence

I do enjoy a mystery, though I spend way too much time chasing them.

Perhaps you'd like to add an entry for your Chromebook on the Laptops
section of the Wiki, so others might benefit from your pain? ..

I also enjoyed your exchange with the forum guy .. you were being so
non-provocative but disturbed someone's sense of exclusivity anyway.

cheers, Ian