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unixusr

Member

Registered: 2021-03-08

Posts: 3

Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha - No Sound with Headphones

I recently picked up this laptop with a student discount. I've been using Bluetooth headphones, but recently had problems with it disconnecting randomly. Then I decided to say screw it and plug them into my headphone jack, until I found out that for whatever reason the headphone jack doesn't work, yet it does under Windows 10. I have installed the sof-firmware package to get the speakers working. When I select which device to use in gnome sound settings or pavucontrol, it says "Headphones - Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS". When doing a speaker test it sounds like a little bit of audio is coming through, but it's very faint and crackly and unusable.

Here is the output of aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 0: HDA Analog (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 1: HDA Digital (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 3: HDMI1 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 4: HDMI2 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 5: HDMI3 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Here is the output of cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [sofhdadsp      ]: sof-hda-dsp - sof-hda-dsp
                      SAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.LTD.-730QCJ730QCR-P04RFG-NP730QCJ_K02US

Here is the output of cat /proc/asound/modules

 0 snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp

Here is the output of evtest

No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:	Lid Switch
/dev/input/event1:	Power Button
/dev/input/event2:	Power Button
/dev/input/event3:	AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
/dev/input/event4:	Video Bus
/dev/input/event5:	Intel HID events
/dev/input/event6:	Intel HID 5 button array
/dev/input/event7:	ELAN0B00:00 04F3:3136 Mouse
/dev/input/event8:	ELAN0B00:00 04F3:3136 Touchpad
/dev/input/event9:	ELAN902C:00 04F3:2AC3
/dev/input/event10:	ELAN902C:00 04F3:2AC3 UNKNOWN
/dev/input/event11:	ELAN902C:00 04F3:2AC3 UNKNOWN
/dev/input/event12:	ELAN902C:00 04F3:2AC3
/dev/input/event13:	PC Speaker
/dev/input/event14:	Intel HID switches
/dev/input/event15:	sof-hda-dsp Mic
/dev/input/event16:	sof-hda-dsp Headphone
/dev/input/event17:	sof-hda-dsp HDMI/DP,pcm=3
/dev/input/event18:	sof-hda-dsp HDMI/DP,pcm=4
/dev/input/event19:	sof-hda-dsp HDMI/DP,pcm=5
/dev/input/event20:	720p HD Camera: 720p HD Camera
/dev/input/event21:	HD 4.40BT (AVRCP)
Select the device event number [0-21]: 16
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x0 vendor 0x0 product 0x0 version 0x0
Input device name: "sof-hda-dsp Headphone"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 5 (EV_SW)
    Event code 2 (SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT) state 0
Properties:
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 1615200143.596194, type 5 (EV_SW), code 2 (SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT), value 1
Event: time 1615200143.596194, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

I hope this is enough information. Would love to solve this issue. I've never had anything like this with a simple headphone jack before. I even tried booting Linux Mint and Debian, and the same issue persists.

unixusr

Member

Registered: 2021-03-08

Posts: 3

Re: Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha - No Sound with Headphones

bump

2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,645

Re: Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha - No Sound with Headphones

bump

Please don't do that.

unixusr

Member

Registered: 2021-03-08

Posts: 3

Re: Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha - No Sound with Headphones

I found something else that may be useful information:

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec

returns "Realtek ALC256"

I searched online for "ALC256 headphone jack no sound" and I found a LinuxMint thread, but nothing as a useful solution for this laptop.

I tried setting "options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-amic" or "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" to /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel.conf
but that changed nothing. I also tried killing pulseaudio and deleting .config/pulse.

Last edited by unixusr (2021-03-11 09:14:01)

mjkramer

Member

Registered: 2021-12-17

Posts: 1

Re: Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha - No Sound with Headphones

Through trial and error I've found that the following pair of HDA verbs magically fixes the headphone jack on my Flex Alpha:

sudo hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x20 0x500 0x8
sudo hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x20 0x42f 0xcf

I'm working on a kernel patch to do it automatically when this particular laptop model is detected. Until then, a systemd unit can be used to apply these commands on boot and suspend. See https://forum.manjaro.org/t/howto-set-u … book/37090 for example unit files. Obviously you'll want to replace the HDA verbs given in that guide.