low sound volume

[Stephen Wilson]

this is a thinkpad x1 carbon 3rd gen running xubuntu 15.04

sound volume is very low compared to windows (dual boot), even with alsa and pulseaudio controls set to 100% (or greater).

this applies to all apps.

i can get really loud sound with:
pactl set-sink-volume 1 300000
but then it is very distorted.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-20.20-generic 3.19.8
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.1
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: smwilson 1577 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: smwilson 1577 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Tue Jun 16 06:44:39 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-06-04 (11 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu Core 15.04 - amd64 - 20150425
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Symptom_Card: Built-in Audio - HDA Intel PCH
Symptom_Jack: Speaker, Internal
Symptom_Type: Volume slider, or mixer problems
Title: [20BSCTO1WW, Realtek ALC3232, Speaker, Internal] volume slider problem
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 12/01/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: N14ET25W (1.03 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 20BSCTO1WW
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: SDK0E50510 WIN
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrN14ET25W(1.03):bd12/01/2014:svnLENOVO:pn20BSCTO1WW:pvrThinkPadX1Carbon3rd:rvnLENOVO:rn20BSCTO1WW:rvrSDK0E50510WIN:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNone:
dmi.product.name: 20BSCTO1WW
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 3rd
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/commit/sound/pci/hda?id=394c97f824fa6b62351fe08b722fff2fc5188bfc

do this patch fix your problem if you are using dual boot ?

[Stephen Wilson (smwilsonau)]

Thanks for your response. My sound is not completely mute, only low in volume, however this would still be worth a try.

Unfortunately I don't know how to apply a patch. Do you expect this patch to be applied in a future ubuntu kernel update?

[Stephen Wilson (smwilsonau)]

Okay, I attempted to apply the patch. But when I downloaded the source code to my kernel, it seems that the patch has already been applied. Is this correct?

Here is my output of uname -a:

Linux ocotillo 3.19.0-21-generic #21-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jun 14 18:31:11 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Also, I tried with headphones and similar to the built-in speakers, max volume is *much* louder in windows than linux.

Note that pushing volume above 100% in pavucontrol leads to distortion.

[Stephen Wilson (smwilsonau)]

Any chance of getting this issue addressed? It really limits what I can do with linux on this machine. Thanks.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Fabio (fabio-pellati)]

I have also this issue with lenovo x1 charbon

[Fabio (fabio-pellati)]

I haven't dual boot

[Havard Bjastad (havard-bjastad)]

I have the same problem - does anyone have an idea how to solve it?

[Lasha Abulashvili (webgen)]

Same problem here, lenovo X1C3.

[Lasha Abulashvili (webgen)]

With latest kernel too, 4.8.X

[Stephen Wilson (smwilsonau)]

OP here. This bug still exists. A very partial workaround is to use PulseAudio Equalizer. Zero out the first three channels (50, 100, 156 Hz) and the highest one (20 KHz) because the speakers cannot make them anyway. Bump up some of the others until it sounds best to you. It doesn't solve the problem, but it improves the sound somewhat.

[Igor Kuznetsov (softerix)]

Same problem, ubuntu 16.04 on ThinkPad T460.

[Mathieu Desnoyers (compudj)]

I have a similar issue on Debian 9 (Stretch) on a Lenovo X1 Carbon 6th Gen laptop.

DMI: LENOVO 20KHCTO1WW/20KHCTO1WW, BIOS N23ET63W (1.38 ) 04/20/2019

The built-in speaker volume is limited to about 20% even if the volume is set at 100%.

The sound card is a ALC285 handled by the snd_hda_intel driver.

On my kernel (4.9.0-9-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.168-1+deb9u2 (2019-05-13)), I managed to find this work-around which addresses the low volume issue:

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

add the following line:

options snd-hda-intel model=nofixup

After modprobe -r/modprobe of the snd_hda_intel module (or reboot), the volume works fine.

Hopefully this can help others facing this open issue as well.

Here is the output of lspci -vvv for the sound card:

00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9d71 (rev 21) (prog-if 80)
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device 225c
 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 64
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 125
 Region 0: Memory at 2ffb018000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
 Region 4: Memory at 2ffb000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
  Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=55mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
  Status: D0 NoSoftRst+ PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
 Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
  Address: 00000000fee00278 Data: 0000
 Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
 Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_skl