[GTALUG] Acer Aspire 3 A315-21 laptop has mono sound only?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Ken Heard via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| I think that this particular laptop has mono sound.

Don has pointed out that the specs say "stereo".

|  I have been using it
| temporarily to stream content by HDMI to a LG HD monitor and then by fibre
| optical cable to a NED D3020 V2 hybrid amplifier and finally to a pair of bass
| reflect speakers.  Unfortunately sound comes out of only one speaker.

Good idea to test HDMI out.  But your chain is intricate enough that
the problem is hard to isolate.  Can you try something simpler?

| After extensive tests I have determined to my satisfaction that the problem is
| in the laptop.  I can test the two speakers built in the laptop separately,
| but I have no way of knowing whether the sound so produced is mono or stereo.

How are you testing each channel?

- what distro & version are you using?

- what desktop environment?

- what (software) mixer are you playing with?

- have you tried Windows?

| I could find no specs for this laptop with details about the sound card.

Perhaps lshw could help.

Surely there is information in the boot messages (see dmesg's output).

| Lack of such specs indicates to me that Acer does not want people to know that
| this laptop is mono only. Is mono sound the norm for low market laptops such
| as this one and notebooks?

It is stereo.

You may have a driver problem.  You might have an electrical fault 
(unlikely to affect all modes).