sound only coming from left speaker on acer predator (fresh install)

[thijs boumans]

Ubuntu version: Ubuntu 16.10 and a fresh install of 17.04 and even fedora F25-WORK-x86_64-20170228 via live usb

Device: acer predator: G9-593-7757 15,6"/i7-7700/32 GB RAM/512 GB SSD/1 TB HDD/GTX1070

expected: sound comes out of both left and right speaker and the subwoofer

what happened instead:
Sound only comes out of the left speaker or subwoofer.

More system information:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC255 Analog [ALC255 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

audio chip (on motherboard): VGA Chip nVidia N17E-G2-A1 GP104-725-A1

note that that is only 1 device, one would expect several here.

I attempted to fix this by modifying the /etc/pulse/deamon.conf into the following:
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

## Configuration file for the PulseAudio daemon. See pulse-daemon.conf(5) for
## more information. Default values are commented out. Use either ; or # for
## commenting.

; daemonize = no
; fail = yes
; allow-module-loading = yes
; allow-exit = yes
; use-pid-file = yes
; system-instance = no
; local-server-type = user
; enable-shm = yes
; enable-memfd = yes
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB
; lock-memory = no
; cpu-limit = no

; high-priority = yes
; nice-level = -11

; realtime-scheduling = yes
; realtime-priority = 5

; exit-idle-time = 20
; scache-idle-time = 20

; dl-search-path = (depends on architecture)

; load-default-script-file = yes
; default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa

; log-target = auto
; log-level = notice
; log-meta = no
; log-time = no
; log-backtrace = 0

; resample-method = speex-float-1
; enable-remixing = yes
 enable-lfe-remixing = yes
; lfe-crossover-freq = 0

flat-volumes = no

; rlimit-fsize = -1
; rlimit-data = -1
; rlimit-stack = -1
; rlimit-core = -1
; rlimit-as = -1
; rlimit-rss = -1
; rlimit-nproc = -1
; rlimit-nofile = 256
; rlimit-memlock = -1
; rlimit-locks = -1
; rlimit-sigpending = -1
; rlimit-msgqueue = -1
; rlimit-nice = 31
; rlimit-rtprio = 9
; rlimit-rttime = 200000

; default-sample-format = s16le
; default-sample-rate = 44100
; alternate-sample-rate = 48000
default-sample-channels = 3
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right,lfe

; default-fragments = 4
; default-fragment-size-msec = 25

; enable-deferred-volume = yes
deferred-volume-safety-margin-usec = 1
; deferred-volume-extra-delay-usec = 0

but this did not work. I also tried various other permutations to see if changing the order of front-left,front-right,lfe would work but it did not. I also tried to see if it would work in fedora but the same problem occurred there. When on ubuntu 16.10 at first only the subwoofer seemed to be working and altering the file only the left speaker was working. On ubuntu 17.04 only the left speaker was working regardless of how I altered the above file.

Note that the speakers work perfectly fine on windows 10.

Looking around online there seem to be a lot of problems with acer predator laptops and sound on ubuntu.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Dahna (dahna)]

Btw it might sounds not serious but in fact on my laptop it's essentially make sound system useless - sound from subwoofer comes very distorted making almost impossible to distinguish any voice, so no skype, no movies, no youtube or podcast on ubuntu.

Have to boot to windows only for that

From googling I would say it affect multiple laptops with more than 2 speakers, not only acer predators

[Andy S Alic (asalic)]

I have the same problem with a Predator g9 593 and Ubuntu 16.04 (only the sub is working...).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This could be distantly related to bug 608069.

[iLugo (isra)]

I am also affected.

My system: ACER Predator 17 G9-791, running Kubuntu 17.04. Problem has been permanent ever since first install (in dual boot with Windows) of Kubuntu 16.04.

[Bolzen Muffin (muffinman)]

I have the same issue with Acer Predator 15 G9-593-72VT
15.6" Gaming Laptop Computer - Black;
Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor 2.6GHz;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5;
16GB DDR4-2133 RAM;
256GB SSD + 1TB HDD

[Jakob (johnthedon)]

I have the same problem with Acer Predator X34A monitor. The sound-control panel says, the controller is GP104 High Definition Audio Controller.

[Jakob (johnthedon)]

(I run Ubuntu 17.04 by the way)

[AKP (f0zb0t)]

I am also one of the affected users. I want to contribute towards fixing this / writing enhancements in the ALSA / pulseaudio. How do I get started with audio driver development?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 17.04 (zesty) reached end-of-life on January 13, 2018.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.

[rotten (rotten)]

I have a brand new Acer Predator 17x and I just installed Ubuntu 18.04. I also only get sound out of the left speaker. When I do the sound test, both the Right and Left channel sounds come out of the left speaker. This laptop actually has a subwoofer as well as a right speaker. Neither the right speaker nor the subwoofer working. With Windows it sounds pretty good. Under Linux is sort of sounds like my cell phone.

If I can help in some way, let me know.

[rotten (rotten)]

I found a work-around here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2357875

Using hdajackretask:

I set pin 0x14 to "Internal Speaker"
          0x17 to "Internal Speaker LFE"
          0x1b to "Internal Speaker (Back)"

The laptop sounds _much_ better now.

[CleverSageLife (cleversagelife)]

@rotten hdajackretask worked for me. Confirmed.

My Acer Predator 15 G9-593-72VT has:
Card: HDA Intel PCH
Chip: Realtek ALC255

FIXING IT BY SETTING THE PINS AKA JACK RETASKING:

STEP 1: INSTALL THE FOLLOWING SUITE OF APPS:
sudo apt-get install alsa-tools-gui

STEP 2: RUN THIS PARTICULAR APP FROM THE SUITE AT THE TERMINAL:
hdajackretask

STEP 3: CHECK THE FOLLOWING BOX:
show unconnected pins

STEP 4: SET THE PINS AS FOLLOWS:
0x14 to "Internal Speaker" (do NOT check the box for override)
0x17 to "Internal Speaker LFE" (check the box for override)
0x1b to "Internal Speaker (Back)" (check the box for override)

STEP 5: TEST IT
(play a song or stream a video?)

STEP 6: IF THE TEST SUCCEEDS, CLICK BUTTON:
Install Boot Override
(you will need to put in an admin password)

STEP 7: REBOOT
See if the settings stuck after a restart.

At any time, if something goes wonky, restart the computer, and try again. I found that sometimes the sound quits and freezes while applying different configs, but a restart resets it back to normal.

https://i.imgur.com/B6iYgcN.jpg

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug has been closed for 5 months due to no response from the original reporter.

If you have any problems at all then please discuss them in new bug reports.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Having said that, this sounds like very specific hardware with a very specific problem. So in this case I'm happy to reopen this bug.

[matthew p (pizfunk)]

This is still an issue for my hardware. The workaround in the comments does seem to work, but honestly it took finally googling the right phrase after months of trying to find a solution on and off.

If this bug could actually be fixed by reopening it, I would like to see it reopened because it might help other people out that aren't as lucky as the people that find this bug ticket.

aplay -l:
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC255 Analog [ALC255 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug is open already. It was reopened on 10 July 2018.

[Carlos Velasco (hollowsaibot)]

Hi, I have the same problem I think (2.1 speakers and sounds only the left, if i remove the two little ones (L & R), the subwoofer can sound)

I run "sudo lshw" so the text is long:

descripción: Equipo de escritorio
    producto: System Product Name (ASUS_MB_CNL)
    fabricante: System manufacturer
    versión: System Version
    serie: System Serial Number
    anchura: 64 bits
    capacidades: smbios-3.2.1 dmi-3.2.1 smp vsyscall32
    configuración: boot=normal chassis=desktop family=To be filled by O.E.M. sku=ASUS_MB_CNL uuid=369FBB1D-1BB1-EC38-97E5-04D9F582D7F3
  *-core
       descripción: Placa base
       producto: PRIME Z390-A
       fabricante: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
       id físico: 0
       versión: Rev 1.xx
       serie: 190755509801753
       ranura: Default string
     *-firmware
          descripción: BIOS
          fabricante: American Megatrends Inc.
          id físico: 0
          versión: 1401
          date: 11/26/2019
          tamaño: 64KiB
          capacidad: 16MiB
          capacidades: pci apm upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi
     *-memory
          descripción: Memoria de sistema
          id físico: 4b
          ranura: Placa de sistema o placa base
          tamaño: 16GiB
        *-bank:0
             descripción: Project-Id-Version: lshwReport-Msgid-Bugs-To: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>PO-Revision-Date: 2012-03-14 06:38+0000Last-Translator: Paco Molinero <email address hidden>Language-Team: Spanish <email address hidden>MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitX-Launchpad-Export-Date: 2019-10-10 15:05+0000X-Generator: Launchpad (build af2eefe214bd95389a09b7c956720881bab16807)Project-Id-Version: lshwReport-Msgid-Bugs-To: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>PO-Revision-Date: 2012-03-14 06:38+0000Last-Translator: Paco Molinero <email address hidden>Language-Team: Spanish <email address hidden>MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitX-Launchpad-Export-Date: 2019-10-10 15:05+0000X-Generator: Launchpad (build af2eefe214bd95389a09b7c956720881bab16807) [vacío]
             id físico: 0
             ranura: ChannelA-DIMM1
        *-bank:1
             descripción: DIMM DDR4 Síncrono 3200 MHz (0,3 ns)
             producto: CMW16GX4M2C3200C16
             fabricante: Corsair
             id físico: 1
             serie: 00000000
             ranura: ChannelA-DIMM2
             tamaño: 8GiB
             anchura: 64 bits
             reloj: 3200MHz (0.3ns)
        *-bank:2
             descripción: Project-Id-Version: lshwReport-Msgid-Bugs-To: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>PO-Revision-Date: 2012-03-14 06:38+0000Last-Translator: Paco Molinero <email address hidden>Language-Team: Spanish <email address hidden>MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitX-Launchpad-Export-Date: 2019-10-10 15:05+0000X-Generator: Launchpad (build af2eefe214bd95389a09b7c956720881bab16807)Project-Id-Version: lshwReport-Msgid-Bugs-To: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>PO-Revision-Date: 2012-03-14 06:38+0000Last-Translator: Paco Molinero <pa...