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jerf

Member

Registered: 2009-06-03

Posts: 35

[SOLVED]No sound (after a recent update? previously everything worked)

So I have this weird issue, and I have zero ideas on how to further troubleshoot it, so I'd greatly appreciate any help.

The problem is as follows. I have an Asus Expertbook B9400CEA laptop. Up until recently everything worked fine. Today I realized that there is no sound, neither from the speakers nor if I plug in headphones. I'm not sure whether the problem appeared today, since I don't remember whether I used the speakers or the headphones yesterday, but several days ago definitely everything worked fine (I think I've ran a pacman update in the meanwhile, but I'm not 100% sure, I can check the logs if it's important).

So I've tried all the usual ways to solve sound problems, unmuting/changing volume in various channels with alsamixer, and playing with pulseaudio controls via KDE's interface, but nothing helped. The weirdness is that the correct pulseaudio sink appears to work fine; I even see pulsating volume bar in the KDE's volume management interface when I have some audio playing, as if everything works fine (but there is no actual sound).

The relevant part (excluding the HDMI sinks) of the "pacmd list-sinks" command output (when something is playing) is as follows:

* index: 3
        name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic.HiFi__hw_sofhdadsp__sink>
        driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
        flags: HARDWARE HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY
        state: RUNNING
        suspend cause: (none)
        priority: 9032
        volume: front-left: 22938 /  35% / -27.36 dB,   front-right: 22938 /  35% / -27.36 dB
                balance 0.00
        base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        volume steps: 65537
        muted: no
        current latency: 59.74 ms
        max request: 11 KiB
        max rewind: 11 KiB
        monitor source: 3
        sample spec: s16le 2-канальный 4800
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        used by: 1
        linked by: 1
        configured latency: 60.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 341.33 ms
        card: 0 <alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic>
        module: 6
        properties:
                alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
                device.api = "alsa"
                device.class = "sound"
                alsa.class = "generic"
                alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
                alsa.name = ""
                alsa.id = "HDA Analog (*)"
                alsa.subdevice = "0"
                alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
                alsa.device = "0"
                alsa.card = "0"
                alsa.card_name = "sof-hda-dsp"
                alsa.long_card_name = "ASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.-ASUSEXPERTBOOKB9400CEA_B9400CEA-1.0-B9400CEA"
                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 = "a0c8"
                device.product.name = "Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller"
                device.string = "_ucm0001.hw:sofhdadsp"
                device.buffering.buffer_size = "65536"
                device.buffering.fragment_size = "16384"
                device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
                device.profile.name = "HiFi: hw:sofhdadsp: sink"
                device.profile.description = "Speaker + Headphones"
                alsa.mixer_device = "_ucm0001.hw:sofhdadsp"
                device.description = "Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller Speaker + Headphones"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        ports:
                [Out] Speaker: Speaker (priority 100, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
                        properties:

                [Out] Headphones: Headphones (priority 200, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:

        active port: <[Out] Speaker>

which to me seems as if everything is perfectly fine. Still, there is no sound. More precisely, there is completely no sound from the speakers, but if I plug headphones I hear periodic cracking sound like "duh-duh-duh-...", which does not change if I change the volume (or anything else).

Also I've checked that if I boot into Windows (which came with this laptop; I've kept it in dual boot), everything works fine (both the speakers and the headphones).

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks!

EDIT: Suddenly everything works fine again! It's really weird, I didn't do anything. Just booted up the laptop today, and the sound is working again. Yesterday I rebooted it multiple times, to no avail. Very strange. Anyway, I'm marking this as "solved" for now, although I still have absolutely no idea what happened...

Last edited by jerf (2021-08-07 07:17:42)