Very low audio volume headphone and speakers on F34

Recently I lost audio on an update to F33. I didn’t worry about it then and thought maybe the next update would fix it. I later realized that the speaker and headphone output was just really low to the point of being almost inaudible. I upgraded to F34 thinking that that may fix it but it didn’t. Here is what I’ve tried so far to no avail.

Used alsamixer and cranked up all of the volume (selected my card with f6)
Used pavucontrol to do the same, still no or little sound
Uninstalled pipewire so it was just alsa installed
Ran “sudo alsactl init”

Here are my symptoms. Low audio on the laptop speakers and headphones but oddly bluetooth headphones work a little better. “aplay -D pipewire -c 2 sound.wav” and “aplay -D default -c 2 sound.wav” play with the same low volume. But “aplay -D sysdefault:CARD=broadwellrt286 -c 2 sound.wav” comes out with the normal volume so i know that the card must be working and its just a config problem.

Here is the output of aplay devices

[tony@enchiridion ~]$ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pipewire
    PipeWire Sound Server
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PipeWire Media Server)
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=1
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 1
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=2
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 2
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 3
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=4
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 4
    HDMI Audio Output
sysdefault:CARD=broadwellrt286
    broadwell-rt286, 
    Default Audio Device
[tony@enchiridion ~]$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: broadwellrt286 [broadwell-rt286], device 0: System Playback/Capture (*) []
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: broadwellrt286 [broadwell-rt286], device 1: Offload0 Playback (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: broadwellrt286 [broadwell-rt286], device 2: Offload1 Playback (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I’m stumped. Any help from the community would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

2 Likes

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/how-to-change-nominal-sound-level-range-in-gnome/72011?u=sampsonf

Install Gnome-tweaks, enable sound level to be above 100%.

1 Like

I tried gnome-tweaks and it’s a little better but way too low for normal usage.

I know it must be some kind of interaction between pipewire and alsa because using aplay to send a WAV file directly to the sound card (sysdefault:CARD=broadwellrt286) has normal volume. And that normal volume is actually affected by the alsa volume controls. What is also odd is that this happened on F33 a month or so before the Fedora upgrade to 34 and the replacement with pipewire. If someone could please help, maybe an alsa pre-amp might work but I didn’t understand the how-tos online for this. Thanks!

1 Like

Thanks for the update.

In one of my old Dell Vostro notebook, I also notice a notable default sound volume drop during F33 timeframes. As after using over-amplification it is barely OK, I did not further study about that issue.

I will keep an eye on this topic for any better solutions.

Thank you Sampson. I will do the same and if I find a fix, I will post an update here as well.

2 Likes

Useful discussion, thanks, I appreciate that!

1 Like

I’ve the same issue from yesterday, just after some packages updates on F34. HDMI and back (motherboard) headphones output work well, but the front headphones output is very low. I’m using F34 from some weeks without any audio problem.

Using gnome-tweaks does not solve the problem

$ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pipewire
    PipeWire Sound Server
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PipeWire Media Server)
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=1
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 1
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=2
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 2
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 3
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=4
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 4
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=5
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 5
    HDMI Audio Output
sysdefault:CARD=Generic
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    Front output / input
surround21:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, ALC1220 Digital
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output

This is the relevant updates that caused this issue:

$ dnf history info 28
    Installed  gstreamer1-plugin-openh264-1.18.2-1.fc34.x86_64            @fedora-cisco-openh264
    Installed  kernel-5.12.7-300.fc34.x86_64                              @updates
    Installed  kernel-core-5.12.7-300.fc34.x86_64                         @updates
    Installed  kernel-modules-5.12.7-300.fc34.x86_64                      @updates
    Installed  kernel-modules-extra-5.12.7-300.fc34.x86_64                @updates
    Upgrade    kernel-headers-5.12.5-300.fc34.x86_64                      @updates
    Upgraded   kernel-headers-5.11.20-300.fc34.x86_64                     @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                              @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                              @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-alsa-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                         @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-alsa-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                         @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-gstreamer-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                    @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-gstreamer-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                    @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64    @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64    @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-libs-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                         @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-libs-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                         @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-pulseaudio-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                   @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-pulseaudio-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                   @@System
    Upgrade    pipewire-utils-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                        @updates
    Upgraded   pipewire-utils-0.3.27-2.fc34.x86_64                        @@System
    Upgrade    systemd-248.3-1.fc34.x86_64                                @updates
    Upgraded   systemd-248.2-1.fc34.x86_64                                @@System
    Upgrade    systemd-udev-248.3-1.fc34.x86_64                           @updates
    Upgraded   systemd-udev-248.2-1.fc34.x86_64                           @@System
1 Like

Wow, that seems like a similar problem to mine but from a totally different card. I wish I had’ve recorded the updates that caused the problem when it happened. I do remember that at the time, it was an update to kernel 5.10 and if I rebooted with kernel 5.9 from grub, everything worked fine but that was on F33.

2 Likes

Just updated some packages to latest version and now front output works again a the right volume :man_shrugging:

    Installed kernel-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64                           @updates
    Installed kernel-core-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64                      @updates
    Installed kernel-modules-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64                   @updates
    Installed kernel-modules-extra-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64             @updates

    Upgrade    hwdata-0.348-1.fc34.noarch                              @updates
    Upgrade    kernel-headers-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64                   @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                           @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-alsa-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                      @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-gstreamer-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                 @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64 @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-libs-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                      @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-pulseaudio-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                @updates
    Upgrade    pipewire-utils-0.3.29-2.fc34.x86_64                     @updates

    Upgraded   kernel-5.11.20-300.fc34.x86_64                          @@System
    Upgraded   kernel-core-5.11.20-300.fc34.x86_64                     @@System
    Upgraded   kernel-modules-5.11.20-300.fc34.x86_64                  @@System
    Upgraded   kernel-modules-extra-5.11.20-300.fc34.x86_64            @@System
    Upgraded   hwdata-0.347-1.fc34.noarch                              @@System
    Upgraded   kernel-headers-5.12.5-300.fc34.x86_64                   @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-alsa-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                      @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-gstreamer-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                 @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64 @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-libs-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                      @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-pulseaudio-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                @@System
    Upgraded   pipewire-utils-0.3.28-1.fc34.x86_64                     @@System
1 Like

Thanks for the update milal! Unfortunately, updating to those versions didn’t fix my issues. I even reinstalled pipewire by following this Common F34 bugs - Fedora Project Wiki. Although the configs have moved to /usr/share/pipewire/ now.

1 Like

UPDATE: This is still not resolved. I’m actually typing this message on Fedora 36 beta and am still having the same problem but it doesn’t seem that there is any fix available. I google the problem and all I get is my own unanswered question on this forum. This is a Fedora specific problem since Manjaro works quite fine on the same hardware using pipewire as well. Looks like I’m leaving Fedora for good, albeit reluctantly. I just can’t have my day to day computer running without access to sound output.

Adios all

I had the same problem and nothing worked to fix the issue.

What did finally help was to create the file /etc/modprobe.d/snd-intel.conf and change the audio driver by writing options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=3 into that file. dsp_driver=3 is SOF driver, 2 is SST driver, 1 is HDaudio legacy driver.

Save the file, run

sudo dracut --force and reboot.

Putting it out there in case it works for someone else aswell.

Worked for me on the Dell Latitude 7350, Fedora 39, Pipewire.
Dank voor het delen van deze oplossing.