No digital out with VIA VT1708b

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it without more information.

Please include the information requested from the "Reporting Sound Bugs" section of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments.

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=9b58cd8a3b98ac5d65595c050de0975acf7854e8

Asus M2N68-VM, no optical audio...no optical light...no HDMI audio either, but just optical would do :)

!!################################
!!ALSA Information Script v 0.4.52
!!################################

!!Script ran on: Fri Dec 5 13:40:10 EST 2008

!!Linux Distribution
!!------------------

Ubuntu 8.10 \n \l DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.10"

!!Kernel Information
!!------------------

Kernel release: 2.6.27.7-ultimate
Operating System: GNU/Linux
Architecture: i686
Processor: unknown
SMP Enabled: Yes

!!ALSA Version
!!------------

Driver version: 1.0.17
Library version:
Utilities version: 1.0.17

!!Loaded ALSA modules
!!-------------------

snd_hda_intel

!!Soundcards recognised by ALSA
!!-----------------------------

 0 [NVidia ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xdfff8000 irq 21

!!PCI Soundcards installed in the system
!!--------------------------------------

00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1)

!!Advanced information - PCI Vendor/Device/Susbsystem ID's
!!--------------------------------------------------------

00:07.0 0403: 10de:055c (rev a1)
 Subsystem: 1043:8345

!!Modprobe options (Sound related)
!!--------------------------------

snd-atiixp-modem: index=-2
snd-intel8x0m: index=-2
snd-via82xx-modem: index=-2
snd-usb-audio: index=-2
snd-usb-usx2y: index=-2
snd-usb-caiaq: index=-2
snd-cmipci: mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388
snd-pcsp: index=-2

!!Loaded sound module options
!!--------------------------

!!Module: snd_hda_intel
bdl_pos_adj : 32,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1
enable : Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y,Y
enable_msi : 0
id : <NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>
index : -1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1
model : <NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>,<NULL>
position_fix : 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
power_save : 0
power_save_controller : Y
probe_mask : -1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1
single_cmd : N

!!HDA-Intel Codec information
!!---------------------------
--startcollapse--

Codec: VIA VIA VT1708B 8-Ch
Address: 0
Vendor Id: 0x1106e721
Subsystem Id: 0x10438345
Revision Id: 0x100100
No Modem Function Group found
Default PCM:
    rates [0x0]:
    bits [0x0]:
    formats [0x0]:
Default Amp-In caps: N/A
Default Amp-Out caps: N/A
GPIO: io=0, o=0, i=0, unsolicited=0, wake=0
Node 0x10 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x411: Stereo
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  PCM:
    rates [0x5e0]: 44100 48000 88200 96000 192000
 ...

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

Gutsy has no driver for the VT1708B, so its task should probably be rejected.

HDMI-Output works on custom-compiled alsa 1.0.18a with aplay -D plug:hdmi test.ac3. But neither on Hardy, Intrepid nor Jaunty Alpha 3 there is light on the optical-out. As far as i can see, there was a BIOS update with broke it. With the original Bios i could select either HDMI or S/PDIF. this switch is gone after an update. And I could imagine that alsa relies on this Information to switch between HDMI and S/PDIF.

Any help to get S/PDIF working would be much appreacheated!

Just FYI regarding latest ALSA releases:

I manually installed ALSA 1.0.19 over Intrepid last night and see analog (which works) and HDMI (which I cannot confirm) but no S/PDIF device under aplay -l. Since my motherboard (an M2N78-VM, same audio device as OP) was bought yesterday I assume it has the latest BIOS. There is indeed no option in the BIOS to switch between HDMI and S/PDIF, only to turn "AZALEA" (the audio hardware) completely off.

I'll post detailed information tonight when I'm in front of the computer in question.

The output of alsa-info.sh for my system with ALSA 1.0.19 is at

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=87186e7cf4f20145e160f3a2f2c7ce95970d5916

I also have the same problem with optical output with ALSA 1.0.19 on Asus M2N68.

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=e5c566ee92470f37ac0e489b7f7b307cb3f722fb

I found a bug in the ALSA tracker:

https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=4330

Same problem with optical audio out

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=71d86937d9a4b79037813fd8e591d3097f159ab2

Hanno Stock, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

There seems to be a fix for this issue in the 3.13 upstream kernel. commit number c9a6338aecdb92f9d015ecc26d203e54250bebbb - ALSA: hda - hdmi: Fix IEC958 ctl indexes for some simple HDMI devices

This fix has also been ccd to the stable kernel series.