Fixing volume control on Inspiron 9400 / E1705 in Ubuntu Karmic

A Tech article with View Comments posted 26 November 2009.
Tags: audio, ubuntu

So there was one other problem aside from the nearly flawless install of Ubuntu Karmic I did a few days ago. Apparently the Dell Inspiron 9400 (also known as the E1705, if you bought it through the Dell Home store instead of Dell Small Business like I did) has the STAC9200 audio chipset, and ALSA doesn’t do a good job of correctly mapping the volume control. Symptoms of this include the volume sliders not doing anything, except at about 10% where there is an abrupt cut between 100% loud and muted. Fortunately, according to these directions given by geopteryx in the Ubuntu Forums, it’s easy to fix.

Instead of restarting the computer afterward as it says in the article, you can just run these commands to restart the sound system.