SDB:Sound Card Makes a Noise After KDE Starts

Version: 9.1

Symptom

After KDE starts, your sound card begins making a noise, and the sound output is distorted.

Cause

The IEC958 output ports of your sound chips are activated by kmix or KDE and cause this noise.

Solution

First, disable the KDE-specific mixer support and use only the sound mixer of the ALSA sound system (e.g., KAmix). To do this, proceed as follows:

1. Make sure that no mixer application is loaded. The tray next to the clock should not contain any loudspeaker icon. If it does, right-click it and select the entry "Quit" from the context menu.
2. If the query [Should KAMix start automatically when you log in?] is displayed when closing the mixer, confirm with "Yes" and skip step 13 and step 14 below.
3. In the YaST Control Center, go to:
   • Software
   • Install and Remove Software
4. Search for the keyword "kdemultimedia".
5. Right-click the package "kdemultimedia3-mixer" and select the entry "Delete" from the context menu.
6. Click the button "Accept" at the bottom right.
7. Close the YaST Control Center.
8. Open a console (e.g., by pressing [Alt]+[F2] and entering the command "konsole).
9. In the console, enter the command "su -".
10. You will be prompted to enter the administrator (root) password. Your input will not be displayed.
11. Enter the following commands in the indicated order:
    • rcalsasound stop
    • rm /etc/asound.state
    • rcalsasound start
    • alsactl store
12. Log out from the root identity in the console by pressing the key combination [Ctrl]+[D].
13. Enter the command "kamix & ".
14. Confirm the message [KDEInit could not launch "CheckHardware".].
15. Close the console by pressing the key combination [Ctrl]+[D].

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