Sound card not recognized on Dell Vostro 5568

[hakon]

I just reinstalled a fresh Ubuntu 16.10 on my Dell Vostro 5568 laptop.

The audio controller on the laptop is a Realtek ALC3246 with Waves MaxxAudio Pro. The external interface connector is a microphone in/stereo headphones/external speakers connector.

When I select "System Settings->Sound" the output device in the dialog window shows as "Dummy Output" and when I press the "Test Sound" button no sound is heard from either front left or front right speaker ( I have ensured sound is not muted ).

Note: Before reinstalling, I asked a question on askubuntu,com:

http://askubuntu.com/q/841759/156688

So reinstallation of Ubuntu 16.10 did not help on my sound problem.

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Seems like the problem has been partially resolved:

I did not mention that I had a dual boot machine with Windows 10, since I did not think
it was relevant. Now, here is what I did:

I first reinstalled Ubuntu 16.04 (erased the Ubuntu 16.10 partition).
When I logged into Ubuntu 16.04 the sound problem was still there.
I then logged into Windows 10 an suddenly realized that the sound problem was also present in
Windows 10. So I now suspected it might be a hardware issue and not related to Ubuntu at all.
But before ordering service on the machine I decided to try to reinstall Windows 10 also.
From Windows, I selected "Reset Windows" (option "Remove everything").
After logging back into Windows 10 after the reset, the sound problem was still there, but
the same day I was about to ship the laptop for service, I logged back into Windows a last time,
and, voila, the sound problem was suddenly gone.

I then logged back into Ubuntu 16.04, and to my great relief the sound was now working from Ubuntu also!

So then it was not a hardware issue, but what was it then? If I should guess now, the problem could maybe be related to the external interface connector on the Dell laptop. Since it is a multipurpose microphone in/stereo headphones/external speakers/headset connector it might have confused Ubuntu?

The reason is: Each time I try to connect the headphones in Ubuntu I get a popup dialog asking what audio device I am trying to connect. If I choose headphones it works fine until the next reboot. After that I need to unplug them and replug them for sound to start working again.

The problem could also be related to Ubuntu 16.10 vs. Ubuntu 16.04. To check this I would have to reinstall Ubuntu 16.10, but I do not have the courage to do that currently..

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Unfortuneately, the problem was not fixed after all. I was a little bit to quick to conclude in my last post. Now the sound has stopped working again (both in Windows and Ubuntu). But it starts with a problem in Ubuntu. After unplugging the headphones, the "What kind of device did you plug in?" dialog does not show the next time I replug the headphones ( which is fine, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-settings-daemon/+bug/1297790 ) however what is not fine is that there is no sound. System Settings->Sound show "Dummy output" in the Output tab, and the system does not recognize the sound card any longer. For example:

$ ls /proc/asound/*
ls: cannot access '/proc/asound/*': No such file or directory

$ aplay -l
aplay: device_list:268: no soundcards found...

$ sudo lspci -v | grep Audio
[no output]

The strange thing is that the problem then propagates to Windows 10. How is that possible?
Is there settings on the sound card that survives a reboot? If that is the case, how can
one reset the sound card to its initial configuration?

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

I tried to produce a PulseAudio verbose log by editing /etc/pulse/client.conf
and adding this line to the file:

extra-arguments = -vvvv --log-target=newfile:/tmp/pulseverbose.log --log-time=1

Here is the log file I got after rebooting: see attached file pulseverbose.log

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

I have now done some further research on this. First, I tried to reset Windows 10 once again. After finished the reset and having rebooted Windows 10 once more after that. The sound started to work in Windows 10 again. But I also discover something new: If I plugged in the headphones in Windows 10, the sound stopped working in Windows 10 also. If I clicked on the sound icon in the Windows taskbar, Windows would try to fix the sound problem, and asked me to reboot to implement the proposed fix. Then sound started to work again after rebooting ( but only from the speakers ). If I plugged in the headphones, it would work well until I unplugged them. After that the sound stopped working again.

Also note: In Windows 10, there was no popup dialog when I plugged in my headphones the first time (In Ubuntu I get the annoying popup dialog asking what device I plugged in). So this might be an indication that the popup dialog is really not necessary in Ubuntu?

Anyway, the next thing I did: After having ensured the sound was working from Windows ( after Windows had fixed the sound problem, and I had rebooted windows to implement the fix ) was to boot into Ubuntu. Now the sound worked from Ubuntu 16.04 also ( as expected, since I had not plugged in any headphones yet). I now tested that the speakers produced sound in Ubuntu and then opened the terminal window and ran the commands:

$ ls /proc/asound/
card0 cards devices hwdep modules oss PCH pcm seq timers version

$ ls /proc/asound/card0
codec#0 codec#2 eld#2.0 eld#2.1 eld#2.2 id pcm0c pcm0p pcm3p pcm7p pcm8p

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC3246 Analog [ALC3246 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ lspci -v | grep Audio
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9d71 (rev 21)

Then, opened System Settings->Sound, and confirmed that there was no "Dummy output" in the Output tab. Instead, it now showed "Speakers: Built-in Audio" instead.

I then plugged in the headphones, and got the popup dialog "Unknown audio device" and I chose headphones and confirmed that sound was working from the headphones. Then I checked System Settings->Sound again and confirmed that a new item "Headphones: Built-in Audio" was shown in the Output tab.

I then unplugged and replugged the headphones five times, every time it worked fine (except for the irritating popup window appearing each time I plugged in the headphones).

(The next thing to try now is to reboot Ubuntu once more. I will continue this comment after having rebooted)

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Ok I rebooted Ubuntu with headphones plugged in. I went to System Settings->Sound and confirmed that everything looked fine. However, when I tried to play sound from youtube in Google Chrome there was no sound. I rechecked that the sound was not muted, and that 'aplay -l' showed correct output. I then unplugged the headphones, and sound started to work ( from the speakers ). Then I replugged the headphones, and I got the popup dialog, and then sound started to work from the headphones also. Everything looking fine so far. I then tried to unplug and replug the headphones a few times. Working fine. I will now try to reboot Ubuntu with headphones unplugged.

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Rebooting with headphones unplugged worked fine for a while; then I suspended my laptop for an hour. When I came back and the laptop was reactivated (by opening the lid) sound was not working. Now I went to System Settings->Sound again, and to my surprise some new items had been added to the Output Tab ( see attached file ). It now showed three additional devices: "HDMI/DisplayPort: Built-in Audio", "HDMI/DisplayPort 2: Built-in Audio", and "HDMI/DisplayPort 3: Built-in Audio". But none of these devices worked any better than the original "Headphones: Built-in Audio". If I now uplugged the headphones, there was no sound from the speakers either. And if I tried to replug the headphones, I did not get the popup window about unknown audio device, and still no sound. (aplay -l still shows correct output). I will now try to reboot again and see what happens. I expect I will now have come back to my original problem where sound is permanently disabled, and the sound card is not recognized at all.

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Sorry, the attached screen shot for the previous comment was not correct, here is the correct one.

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Ok then, I have rebooted Ubuntu again, and yes, as I expected I have now returned to the origianl situation:

When I select "System Settings->Sound" the output device in the dialog window shows as "Dummy Output" and when I press the "Test Sound" button no sound is heard from either front left or front right speaker. Running aplay -l gives:

$ aplay -l
aplay: device_list:268: no soundcards found...

Any advice on what to do next?

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

An update:

To sum up the previous posts in this thread:
The problem with the internal Realtek ALC3246 soundcard of my
Dell Vostro 5568 laptop in Ubuntu (tested with 16.04 and 16.10) seems
to be related to the suspend function. The sound stops working after laptop is
suspended and sound cannot be recovered unless Ubuntu (or Windows) is
reinstalled.

Workaround:

I have now tested three USB sound cards to work around the issue with
the internal sound card:

- Deltaco UAC-03 (cheep, and bad sound quality but works out of the
  box )

- SD-UAUDV2-C119 SDM USB 2.0, 7.1 surround, Xear 3D (cheep, medium
  sound quality, works out of the box )

- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD (expensive, but excellent sound
  quality, SPDIF output is not working out of the box)

[spike speigel (frail-knight)]

Hi there hakon,

I too have Realtek ALC3246 in my Dell XPS 13 9360

grep "Codec:" /proc/asound/card*/codec*
/proc/asound/card0/codec#0:Codec: Realtek ALC3246
/proc/asound/card0/codec#2:Codec: Intel Kabylake HDMI

I ran through all the commands you listed in comment #4, and I had the same output except:

lspci -v | grep Audio
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9d71 (rev 21) (prog-if 80)

I have the extra "(prog-if 80)"

I'm not dual booting. I've not experienced sound stop working, but I've also seldom used suspend. But when I have suspended, sound has always worked.

I did not receive my system until Feb 2017. It is a different model, but we appear to share the same audio. What version of Pulseaudio and ALSA are you using? What version of Ubuntu do you have now? What kernel version are you running? Does your system have the latest BIOS?

I've tried the latest 4.4, 4.8, and even 4.10 kernels under 16.04 LTS without issue, all using the latest LTS versions of Pulseaudio and ALSA.

[hakon (hakon-hagland)]

Sound seems to be working again now after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10!! Thanks a lot!