The speaker sound is very small and vague from lenovo thinkbook 16p(Gen4 2023)

Support Sound
1

my laptop’s speaker sound is very small and vague,even though i turned the volume way up , i don’t know how to fix it , need help

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First make sure to check installing sof-firmware if missing, as well as maybe other kernels.

If none of that helps…

Might be something similar to what I experienced with a matebook.

I will copy those instructions here, but note you probably should not follow it exactly.

And lastly here is a guide for things like how to find and share system information:

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218437 – Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen4 IRH no sound (reporting with more information)

The upfacing (with higher frequency) speakers works well with the volumn changing.
But the downfacing (bass) speakers not controled by the system volumn control (alsa-mixer nor gnome&kde).

Regarding the Volume Control, there is no mechanism for controlling the volume via the CS35L41 HDA driver. Instead, the intention is that volume is controlled via the HDA Codec
itself, before the audio is sent to the amp.
The Windows driver works under the same principle.

It is likely that there is a configuration issue in the realtek hda driver (patch_realtek.c), specifically regarding the Fixup used for this model.
The laptops you are referring to use the fixup ALC287_FIXUP_CS35L41_I2C_2:

SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x17aa, 0x38a9, “Thinkbook 16P”, ALC287_FIXUP_CS35L41_I2C_2),
SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x17aa, 0x38ab, “Thinkbook 16P”, ALC287_FIXUP_CS35L41_I2C_2),

Which adds support for the CS35L41 amps via HDA supplied by the Realtek Codec.

Its possible that the realtek codec is not configured in a way that its volume control changes the volume on the stream it provides to the CS35L41 amps.
Unfortunately, you would have to speak to Realtek themselves to confirm how to do that.

There are several other fixups used by Lenovo laptops to connect to CS35L41 via I2C:

  • ALC287_FIXUP_MG_RTKC_CSAMP_CS35L41_I2C_THINKPAD
  • ALC287_FIXUP_CS35L41_I2C_2_THINKPAD_ACPI

It’s possible that one of these may configure the Realtek codec correctly, otherwise you would have to contact Realtek.

Working patch was added to kernel recently (April 18, 2024)
Fix volumn control of ThinkBook 16P Gen4 - Patchwork
ALSA: hda/realtek: Fix volumn control of ThinkBook 16P Gen4 · tiwai/sound@dca5f4d · GitHub

New patch is included in Kernel v6.8.8 available on Unstable and Testing branches, Not released to Stable branch yet.

1 Like
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I’m using a thinkpad P1 gen4, intel only iGPU (no NVIDIA Installed) ALC287 and Dolby Atmos (like yours)
I was having the same issue on linux (common to all the distros) for some Lenovo Laptos.
I’ve got improvement by installing EasyEffects from official repo and following instruction here
and installing the EasyEffects Preset
quite satisfied with it

hope may help :smiley:

Edit: I deed not install the optional dependencies proposed and I’m on Plasma 6

5

This seems the logical solution. Update to the patched kernel when it becomes generally available, and reconfigure your settings as needed.

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Unfortunately the 6.8.8 does not improve my case, maybe in the thinkbook

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lenovo.com//laptops/thinkpad-p1-gen-4/tech_specs

  • 2 x 2W up-firing stereo speakers
  • Dolby Atmos® Speaker System
  • Dual far-field mics

System has 2 speakers and no smart amplifiers so probably does not need a kernel patch

sof-firmware would be needed to support digital microphone array on Intel systems

easyeffects or jamesdsp can replace Dolby Atmos DSP software, but OP may not need much additional DSP when 4 speaker system is working optimally

Patch for CS35L41 smart amplifiers on ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 laptop was released April 2023
ALSA: hda/realtek: Add quirk for ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 - Patchwork

1 Like
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So, this will work for me?
How to add this pacth to my system?

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So, this will work for me?

Probably not since Thinkpad P1 gen 4 has a different audio codec to P1 gen 6
Intel Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 (Gen 4) - ArchWiki

Install ALSA firmware to get audio working.

10

OK, thanks.
alsa-firmware and sof-firmware are installed but compared to windows the sound is very low, situation is improved with EasyEffects and Dolby-Atmos effect applied,
specially on sound quality