# No sound under ~70% volume



## shaunsingh14 (Jul 16, 2017)

Hello all. I recently went through with installing FreeBSD 11.0 on an old HP laptop that I have lying around. As of right now, everything seems to be in working order - X11 doesn't hiccup on me, wireless mouse/touchpad are all configured fairly well, etc. However, there's one area that always manages to bug me - sound. As in, it works but only when I'm damn near maxed out on volume.

Output of `cat /dev/sndstat`


```
[shaun@bsdwarudo /usr/home/shaun]$ cat /dev/sndstat
Installed devices:
pcm0: <IDT 92HD87B2/4 (Analog 2.0+HP/2.0)> (play/rec) default
pcm1: <IDT 92HD87B2/4 (Analog Mic)> (rec)
pcm2: <Intel Panther Point (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
No devices installed from userspace.
```

I have the snd_hda(4) module loaded, and it's appended in /boot/loader.conf as such


```
# Sound support
snd_hda_load="YES"
```

For what it's worth, sound has always been a hit/miss thing for me on Linux as well, where I wouldn't get decent playback unless I jacked the volume all the way near max (as opposed to Windows where I would have flawless playback). Is this a *nix thing or is it a problem with my hardware specifically?

EDIT: Here is a video demonstrating the problem that I have.


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## trev (Jul 19, 2017)

Not sure how you're controlling sound, but what does `mixer` at the command line show when you've set the volume however you're doing it at, say, 50% ?


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## SirDice (Jul 19, 2017)

The "problem" with HDA is that there's an incredible amount of variations. Due to the large amount of implementations there are a ton of settings you can change. Have a look through the snd_hda(4) manual page to see what I mean (It's one of the largest, most extensive, man page when it comes to sound card drivers).


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