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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 PipeWireI 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:1f27In 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=alc3661or
options snd_hda_intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N model=dell-headset-multiPower-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
NThe init_pin_configs are
$ cat /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/init_pin_configs
0x05 0x18560010
0x06 0x18560010
0x07 0x18560010I 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?
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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 ?
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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.
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at this point there could be alot wrong with that huge gap between updates, i would try setting up a new arch installation on a spare ssd (if you have one) and see if the problem is there, at least that will let you know if the problem is with arch or your installation being broken before spending ages trying to find the issue.
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