No sound after fresh install - XFCE / Alder Lake / Multiple kernel versions

Testing after a smooth install has revealed a similar problem seeming to affect many (all?) bleeding edge distros - no sound from the laptop speakers.

Laptop is an HP Elitebook with Alder Lake chip.

When playing an mp3 or video file the gui audio mixer appears to show the correct sound card and registers the output of the audio track being played in the UI but does not play sounds on the built in speakers.

Streaming via VLC and Chromecast works and plays both audio and video normally on the TV. Audio via wired headphones also works fine.

Steps taken to address:

  • Ensure output is on the correct device in GUI (port: Speaker is ticked in Volume Control)
  • Ensure device is not muted
  • Install sof-firmware
  • Change kernel versions (all from 5.15 → 5.19RC3 and all seem to have same issue)

Interestingly this particular hardware setup has worked successfully on Ubuntu 22.04 using stock 5.15 kernel. Kernel upgrades all break the sound however which is of importance given kernels prior to to 5.18 lack Thread Director and inefficiently use the P / E cores.

Have not removed or otherwise reconfigured the default pulseaudio / pipewire configurations.

Here are some system details should they be helpful:

uname-r

5.18.6-1-MANJARO

inxi -Aa

Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
    alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3
    chip-ID: 8086:51c8 class-ID: 0401
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.18.6-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.21 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.52 running: yes

aplay -L

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
lavrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Libav/FFmpeg Library
samplerate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Samplerate Library
speexrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler
jack
    JACK Audio Connection Kit
oss
    Open Sound System
pipewire
    PipeWire Sound Server
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
speex
    Plugin using Speex DSP (resample, agc, denoise, echo, dereverb)
upmix
    Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8)
vdownmix
    Plugin for channel downmix (stereo) with a simple spacialization
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
sysdefault:CARD=sofhdadsp
    sof-hda-dsp, 
    Default Audio Device
usbstream:CARD=sofhdadsp
    sof-hda-dsp
    USB Stream Output

pactl list cards

Card #0
	Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic
	Driver: module-alsa-card.c
	Owner Module: 6
	Properties:
		alsa.card = "0"
		alsa.card_name = "sof-hda-dsp"
		alsa.long_card_name = "HP-HPEliteBook84014inchG9NotebookPC--896D"
		alsa.driver_name = "snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp"
		device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic"
		sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/skl_hda_dsp_generic/sound/card0"
		device.bus = "pci"
		device.vendor.id = "8086"
		device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
		device.product.id = "51c8"
		device.product.name = "Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller"
		device.string = "0"
		device.description = "Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller"
		module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
		device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
	Profiles:
		HiFi: Play HiFi quality Music (sinks: 4, sources: 2, priority: 40768, available: yes)
		off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority: 0, available: yes)
	Active Profile: HiFi
	Ports:
		[Out] HDMI3: HDMI / DisplayPort 3 Output (type: HDMI, priority: 700, latency offset: 10000 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[Out] HDMI2: HDMI / DisplayPort 2 Output (type: HDMI, priority: 600, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[Out] HDMI1: HDMI / DisplayPort 1 Output (type: HDMI, priority: 500, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[Out] Speaker: Speaker (type: Speaker, priority: 100, latency offset: 0 usec, availability unknown)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[Out] Headphones: Headphones (type: Headphones, priority: 200, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[In] Mic2: Headphones Stereo Microphone (type: Mic, priority: 200, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi
		[In] Mic1: Digital Microphone (type: Mic, priority: 100, latency offset: 0 usec, availability unknown)
			Part of profile(s): HiFi

Any suggestions on what this may be other than user error on my part?

put your computer to sleep and wake it up, does it helped with the audio?

Thank you for the suggestion.

It does not appear to me that either Suspend, Hibernate or Hybrid Sleep functions displayed in XFCE actually work.

Clicking each darkens the screen temporarily but the system does not enter the desired state - just drops back to the session login screen.

Running systemctl hibernate does the same thing.

Feels like a kernel upgrade induced issue as fairly certain this functionality was working on the 5.15 kernel but I will double check / play around to see if I can get this functionality working on 5.18.6.

After a reboot hibernate does work correctly when running systemctl hibernate.

However no change in audio output - still does not play audio on laptop speakers.

do you have sof-firmware installed? if not install it:
pamac install sof-firmware
reboot

Please post full response to this command to show ALSA level settings for onboard audio device

amixer -c0

and this to show any error messages in PulseAudio

systemctl --user -l --no-pager status pulseaudio.{socket,service}

Also suggest you disable PipeWire to avoid any potential conflict with PulseAudio

systemctl --user disable --now pipewire.socket pipewire.service

@brahma - as mentioned sof-firmware has been installed (sof-firmware 2.1.1.a-1) and did not address this issue.

@nikgnomic thank you for these suggestions.

I ran the command you suggested to disable pipewire.socket and pipewire.service but still no change - speakers do not output sound.

Here is the output of the following:

amixer -c0

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 73 [84%] [-10.50dB] [off]
  Front Right: Playback 73 [84%] [-10.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 72 [83%] [-11.25dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 72 [83%] [-11.25dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
  Capabilities: volume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: 0 - 3
  Front Left: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',1
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',2
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 63
  Front Left: Capture 38 [60%] [11.25dB] [on]
  Front Right: Capture 38 [60%] [11.25dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Auto-Mute Mode',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'Disabled' 'Enabled'
  Item0: 'Disabled'
Simple mixer control 'Dmic0',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 70
  Front Left: Capture 49 [70%] [-1.00dB] [on]
  Front Right: Capture 49 [70%] [-1.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Dmic1 2nd',0
  Capabilities: cvolume
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 70
  Front Left: Capture 50 [71%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Capture 50 [71%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA1.0 1 Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA2.0 2 Master',0
  Capabilities: cvolume
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 80
  Front Left: Capture 50 [62%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Capture 50 [62%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA3.0 3 Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA30.0 30',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA4.0 4 Master',0
  Capabilities: cvolume
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 80
  Front Left: Capture 50 [62%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Capture 50 [62%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA7.0 7 Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA8.0 8 Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PGA9.0 9 Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 32
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 32 [100%] [0.00dB]
systemctl --user -l --no-pager status pulseaudio.{socket,service}
● pulseaudio.socket - Sound System
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.socket; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2022-07-02 19:26:49 EDT; 17h ago
      Until: Sat 2022-07-02 19:26:49 EDT; 17h ago
   Triggers: ● pulseaudio.service
     Listen: /run/user/1000/pulse/native (Stream)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/pulseaudio.socket

Jul 02 19:26:49 iPadAir systemd[1131]: Listening on Sound System.

● pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2022-07-02 19:26:50 EDT; 17h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 1229 (pulseaudio)
      Tasks: 11 (limit: 76706)
     Memory: 19.3M
        CPU: 4.981s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pulseaudio.service
             ├─1229 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
             └─1242 /usr/lib/pulse/gsettings-helper

Jul 02 19:26:49 iPadAir systemd[1131]: Starting Sound Service...
Jul 02 19:26:50 iPadAir pulseaudio[1229]: stat('/etc/pulse/default.pa.d'): No such file or directory
Jul 02 19:26:50 iPadAir systemd[1131]: Started Sound Service.
Jul 02 19:26:50 iPadAir pulseaudio[1229]: Could not find org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.RegisterBatteryProvider(), is bluetoothd started with experimental features enabled (-E flag)?

The latter seems to have a couple of errors which I have investigated a little bit but have not made any progress on.

enable the pipewire services again, and install pipewire:
sudo pacman -S manjaro-pipewire
it will give you pulse dependencies, uninstall them first, run the command again, reboot and test

Replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire is not likely to help resolve an issue in ALSA

The warning about missing folder /etc/pulse/default.pa.d is not a problem and can be ignored

PulseAudio 15.0 Release notes - The startup script can now read additional configuration from the /etc/pulse/default.pa.d/ directory
there is now an include directive that loads files from /etc/pulse/default.pa.d/ or /etc/pulse/system.pa.d/. This is primarily meant for distributions when they want to add some module to the configuration when installing a package

One simple way to stop the warning messages is create an empty folder

sudo mkdir -p /etc/pulse/default.pa.d

(The new configuration in /etc/pulse/default.pa can be edited to disable/remove .include /etc/pulse/default.pa.d but this will need additional maintenance when PulseAudio updates create a .pacnew file)

See this post for how to deal with warning about battery level indicator:

Problem with Bluetooth audio is unlikely to affect onboard analog audio

I was hoping to see something about why PulseAudio data is showing ALSA using Skylake driver snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp instead of sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl in inxi data
hardware scans for previous generations of Elitebook 840 and current HP Alder lake models all use the tgl Tiger lake driver

I suggest you get more information about ALSA with this command

sudo alsa-info.sh --upload

and post the link to uploaded data here

@brahma I did as you suggest on another install and it did not work.

@nikgnomic thank you ever so much for taking the time to provide such a detailed response. Lots for me to look into which I will hopefully do tomorrow.

Response for sudo alsa-info.sh --upload can be found at:

http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=d3ba73e22fc4d0d9084b164f8c6b650f4e729905

In playing a litte more bluetooth speaker as well as headphones are confirmed to work so it is just the onboard speakers seamingly affected by the issue.

Also received and applied an update to kernel version 5.18.7-1-MANJARO yesterday which did not change anything.

Ever find a solution? I have the same HP laptop with the same devices as you (Bang & Olufsen speakers) and don’t get any sound at all in Linux.

Check BIOS version and consider updating to latest BIOS 01.02.11 Rev.A

HP EliteBook 840 14 inch G9 Notebook PC Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support
Enhances the acoustic experience

Kernel developers have also added a patch for onboard audio codec ALC245 that should get the speakers working

patch_realtek.c - sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c - Linux source code (v5.18.17) - Bootlin
SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x103c, 0x8972, “HP EliteBook 840 G9”, ALC245_FIXUP_CS35L41_SPI_2_HP_GPIO_LED),