Dennis HilkLinux diagnosticsDE

Audio devices

C-Media CM8738 PCI audio family

A legacy C-Media PCI audio family with analog and revision-dependent digital routing.

Editorial source review: Share public profileOpen in the identification tool
On this page
  1. Overview & identity
  2. Driver & binding
  3. Firmware
  4. Read-only diagnostics
  5. Limitations & related issues
  6. References

Overview & identity

The checked constants resolve the CM8738 table match to 13f6:0111. The same driver covers related chips, but this pair cannot identify an exact add-in card or its S/PDIF wiring.

Curated identifiers
pci 13f6:0111

A numeric match establishes a candidate family within the reviewed evidence. Marketing names, board variants, subsystem conditions and successful operation remain separate questions.

Driver & binding

snd_cmipci provides the PCI candidate, mixer and PCM paths. Its documentation separates digital-output behavior from generic playback, so a PCM listing should be followed by checking the intended analog or digital route.

  • snd_cmipci — kernel driver/module candidate

Detected, bound, operational: learn the difference

Firmware

No host payload established here

No external firmware filename was established in the checked driver path. This does not describe firmware stored inside the device.

Inspect firmware packaging on your distribution

Read-only diagnostics

Run one displayed command at a time. Replace uppercase placeholders with the affected device, interface or module from your own output. Commands are never executed here. Read-only output can still contain private identifiers.

Inspect the PCI function and binding

lspci -nnk -s BDF

Replace BDF with the complete address, for example 0000:00:14.0. This read-only query needs pciutils and normally no sudo. “Kernel driver in use” is observed binding; “Kernel modules” lists candidates.

List kernel ALSA cards

cat /proc/asound/cards

Read the current ALSA card list without sudo. Card indexes can change after reboot; an existing card does not yet establish the selected desktop output or usable wiring. A missing file can also reflect unavailable procfs/ALSA support.

List playback PCM endpoints

aplay -l

This read-only alsa-utils listing normally needs no sudo and does not play audio. Compare card/device numbers with the card list; a PCM endpoint is separate from a PipeWire profile and mixer state.

Limitations & related issues

Driver-family support does not prove multichannel availability, board connectors or every advertised digital mode. Do not infer a supported channel count solely from the source family name.

These guides are linked for relevant observations, not as known defects of every device in this family.

Choose a hardware diagnostic workflow · Inspect a log excerpt in Fix Lab

References

Source review records a checked implementation or document, not a reproduced hardware test. Version-specific tables do not establish a minimum kernel or guaranteed operation.