No sound on speakers and analog headphone jack on Asus N7601ZM laptop

[ErikEngerd]

With default settings, I have no sound on this laptop. There is also no sound with the legacy HD audio driver. The digital microphone works though.

options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1

However, I followed these instructions from here to create a firmware file. With this firmware file, the legacy HD audio driver works but of course I have no dmic support. There is still no sound through the speakers and headphone with sof.

The firmware patch file is as follows:

# cat /lib/firmware/alc294-sound-patch.fw 

[codec] 
0x10ec0294 0x104312a3 0

[pincfg]
0x19 0x03A11050
0x1a 0x03A11C30
0x21 0x03211420

[verb]
0x20 0x500 0x62
0x20 0x400 0xa007
0x20 0x500 0x10
0x20 0x400 0x8420
0x20 0x500 0x0f
0x20 0x400 0x7774

The firmware file is essential, if I leave out the verbs for instance it doesn't work anymore.

[ErikEngerd]

The alsa info for the case where legacy audio is enabled (dsp_driver=1) and without dmic is as follows. alsa-info.legacy.txt

[ErikEngerd]

With legacy HD audio disabled:

options snd-hda-intel patch=alc294-sound-patch.fw
#options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1
#options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-dmic 

then the alsa-info is a follows:

alsa-info.sof.txt

[ErikEngerd]

It seems like I am really close to getting a fully working sound setup. Is there a way to get a permanent fix for this in sof, or is there perhaps another workaround I can use to get audio fully working? What additional information do you require?

[plbossart]

@ErikEngerd what is the problem if you enable SOF and keep the "options snd-hda-intel patch=alc294-sound-patch.fw"

In theory there's no correlation between SOF and snd-hda-intel, we use the snd-hda-intel driver but don't control its internal behavior.

[ErikEngerd]

This is one of the cases above. Doublechecked it again and I still have no sound. Also, recording from the usb mic works then.

[plbossart]

Humm, this looks like a known issue/enhancement needed https://github.com/thesofproject/linux/issues/2714. @kv2019i FYI.

[ErikEngerd]

Thanks for your quick response. I didn't know patch support was only there for the legacy HD audio. At least that will save me a lot of trying with sof to get it working.

Is there perhaps also a way to have this issue looked at for incorporation into the snd-hda-intel driver? If so, where should I report this issue?

Meanwhile, I have ordered a mini USB mic to use until the built-in mic will be working. Tested USB mic support with another USB mic already and that was working.

[plbossart]

The fastest way to solve this across the board might be to add the configuration needed with a quirk, see e.g. in sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c

You might need to add you own quirk, similar to e.g.

SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x1043, 0x12ff, "ASUS G751", ALC668_FIXUP_ASUS_G751),

[plbossart]

@ErikEngerd see tentative code in https://github.com/thesofproject/linux/pull/4177, completely untested or even possibly correct, just based on existing code and the values you provided above.

[ErikEngerd]

thanks for the patch. I am a bit confused though since the codec is Alc294 I believe and not ALC 269. Also, I am wondering how to use the quirk based on the code. What module option to use?

I am also not a kernel developer but definitely a sw developer (with my origins in c, c++ back in the day). Also I have compiled drivers and complete kernels in the past so I would like to test the code myself.

[ErikEngerd]

aha, as I understand now the quirk becomes active automatically based on subsystem and vendor id, am I right?

[plbossart]

yes, the quirk would only be applied for your specific system indeed, with PCI information used.

You are right that it's an ALC294 but this codec goes by multiple codes.

/* different alc269-variants */
enum {
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC269VA,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC269VB,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC269VC,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC269VD,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC280,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC282,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC283,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC284,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC293,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC286,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC298,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC255,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC256,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC257,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC215,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC225,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC245,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC287,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC294,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC300,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC623,
    ALC269_TYPE_ALC700,
};

We have instructions if you want to try installing your own kernel, see here: https://thesofproject.github.io/latest/getting_started/setup_linux/install_locally.html

[kv2019i]

@plbossart @ErikEngerd Right, "patch" support is only in snd-hda-intel -> https://github.com/thesofproject/linux/issues/2714 snd-hda-intel provides more debugging interfaces to customize codec setup (without changing kernel code). So the approach has been to use snd-hda-intel to debug the codec, and then when suitable settings have been found, add them as quirks to the codec driver, so SOF can benefit from the quirks as well.

[ErikEngerd]

Now that everything is working I have done a small write-up of the essential steps to go from problem to solution. Thanks a lot for all your help!

[plbossart]

@ErikEngerd this is great, I had no idea about the Asus page https://asus-linux.org/blog/sound-2021-01-11/ Wow.

[ErikEngerd]

can this be closed now, since a patch was accepted?