Arch Linux

cscphy

Member

Registered: 2017-05-06

Posts: 38

Realtek ALC3661 bad sound quality

I'm having hard time to debug a very poor sound quality on my Dell XPS 9333. The sound used to be fine, until a recent upgrade. Since then the quality is significantly worse, you can think as a sort low-bit quality. I also seem to hear a low-volume constant noise, with disabled mic and volume 70%.

The card is a Realtek ALC3661, kernel module is snd_hda_intel. Kernel is 6.18.7, Pipewire is installed

$ pacman -Qs pipewire
local/kpipewire 6.5.5-1 (plasma)
    Components relating to pipewire use in Plasma
local/libpipewire 1:1.4.10-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - client library
local/libwireplumber 0.5.13-1
    Session / policy manager implementation for PipeWire - client library
local/pipewire 1:1.4.10-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor
local/pipewire-alsa 1:1.4.10-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - ALSA configuration
local/pipewire-audio 1:1.4.10-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - Audio support
local/pipewire-pulse 1:1.4.10-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - PulseAudio replacement
local/wireplumber 0.5.13-1
    Session / policy manager implementation for PipeWire

I have tried many things, admittedly using chatgpt, without fully understanding what I was doing....

pactl suggests that pipewire is working

$ pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1001/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 3462
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: ***
Host Name: ***
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.4.10)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Cookie: b2bf:1f27

In case there was an issue with power-saving, I tried to have these parameters in snd_hda_intel.conf

options snd_hda_intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N model=alc3661

or

options snd_hda_intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N model=dell-headset-multi

Power-saving was not an issue, in any case seems disabled now

$ cat /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
0
$ cat /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller
N

The init_pin_configs are

$ cat /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/init_pin_configs
0x05 0x18560010
0x06 0x18560010
0x07 0x18560010

I have "suggested" that this may be the issue, and to load hdajackretask and override the settings in "Internal Speaker, Pin ID 0x14 -> Internal speaker" and "Black Headphone Pin 0x15 -> Headphone".
Nothing changed.
Then I was suggested to configure again module parameters as

# cat /etc/modprobe.d/99-hda-realtek-legacy.conf
options snd-hda-intel model=generic
options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=1
options snd-hda-codec-realtek disable_dsp=1
options snd-hda-codec-realtek legacy_mode=1

(and regenerated initramfs)
Again, no improvement.

Now I'm lost. Where should I look to debug this?

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 838

Re: Realtek ALC3661 bad sound quality

I'm having hard time to debug a very poor sound quality on my Dell XPS 9333. The sound used to be fine, until a recent upgrade. Since then the quality is significantly worse

if it happened after an upgrade what changed ? have you tried downgrading packages to find the culprit ?

cscphy

Member

Registered: 2017-05-06

Posts: 38

Re: Realtek ALC3661 bad sound quality

if it happened after an upgrade what changed ? have you tried downgrading packages to find the culprit ?

I have not upgraded my arch installation for a long time (~2 year probably). Eventually I did a full update of the box. For example, I had kernel 6.6.7, which has been updated to 6.17.7. Old pipewire version was 1.0.0-2.
I find very hard now to single out the package(s) that caused the problem, or to reverse the update.