Linux: Why do I not hear sound when I play an audio CD or mp3 file?

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: September 25, 2006]

Q. Everything seems to configured properly. My sound was working earlier. Now I am not able to hear sound whenever I play an audio CD or mp3 file. How do I fix this problem?

A. If your sound card detected and working fine (use dmesg and lspci command for verification), try to adjust system volume using aumix command.
$ dmesg | less $ lspci | less

Now type following command to adjust audio mixer:
$ aumix

This program adjusts the settings of an audio mixing device. It can be used from the command line, in scripts, or interactively with the keyboard or mouse.

Make sure a 4 pin analog cable is connected to the CD/DVD rom. This cable must connect to both CD/DVD ROM and sound card, which may be located on motherboard itself or plugged into PCI slot.

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