Score:1

Audio on Dell Inspiron 3501 is not working (Ubuntu 20.04)

nr flag

I've been using Ubuntu 20.04 for the last few months on my old Dell Inspiron 3558 laptop and it's working like a charm. Recently, I bought a new laptop, a Dell Inspiron 3501, and it came pre-installed with Windows 10. So I dual-booted Ubuntu 20.04 on it to check if everything is working fine and later I wanted to remove Windows completely and install Ubuntu as my primary OS.

After installation, everything is working fine, except for the audio output. The sound kind of crackles. It works perfectly fine on Windows though.

I tested the built-in speakers, Bluetooth headset, and output from 3.5 mm audio jack, but no difference. I tried YouTube videos and local audio and video files, but the outcome is the same. I tried many online solutions, but without any success. I also installed Ubuntu 21.04 to check if the new kernel brings any improvement, but the condition was the same. So I installed Ubuntu 20.04 back, since I'm more comfortable with the LTS version.

I'm a front-end web developer and I feel comfortable with basic command line, but I still consider myself a Linux newbie. Please help me solve this problem.

Hardware specs:

  • Processor: 11th Generation Intel Core i5-1135G7
  • RAM: 16 GB DDR4
  • Audio: Cirrus Logic CS8409 (CS42L42 + SN005825)
  • Storage: 256 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD
  • Display 15.6 Inch 1920x1080 FHD
  • GPU: Integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics
  • More info: Dell Inspiron 3501

EDIT:
I'm able to listen to the audio but it's crackling.

lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9a14 (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a49 (rev 01)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a03 (rev 01)
00:0a.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a0d (rev 01)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device a0ed (rev 20)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Device a0ef (rev 20)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device a0f0 (rev 20)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a0e8 (rev 20)
00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a0e9 (rev 20)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device a0e0 (rev 20)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device a0d3 (rev 20)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device a0bc (rev 20)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device a0b0 (rev 20)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device a082 (rev 20)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device a0c8 (rev 20)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device a0a3 (rev 20)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a0a4 (rev 20)
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp Device 5007 (rev 01)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

lspci -v output for 00:1f.3 (audio device):

00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device a0c8 (rev 20)
    Subsystem: Dell Device 0a25
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 149
    Memory at 6001138000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Memory at 6001000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_sof_pci
rahim007 avatar
nr flag
I can listen to the audio but it's crackling.
rahim007 avatar
nr flag
I checked in Software & Updates app under the Additional Drivers tab, but no drivers are available.
Nate T avatar
it flag
You have the a0c8. last link is for a different 8086 variant. See [here.](https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci:8086-a0c8-1028-0a24)
rahim007 avatar
nr flag
I don't know much about how to check for installed drivers or install custom one, but I checked using these two commands: `lsmod` and `cat /proc/modules`. But couldn't get any idea what to check. Can you provide any command so I can put the output here or any resource about how to check and install drivers.
Score:1
cn flag

First, you need to change the sample rate with this:

sudo gedit  /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

change the line containing ";default-sample-rate=something" with

default-sample-rate = 48000

and save

In my case, I also had a delay when playing the sound so I turned off the power saving with this

sudo gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

change the line

load-module module-suspend-on-idle

with

#load-module module-suspend-on-idle

save and run this

sudo killall pulseaudio
Score:-1
nr flag

Answering my question because I found the solution.

I tried many solutions from the internet but nothing worked. I upgraded to Ubuntu 21.10 and the sound started working but sometimes it just stopped working and no audio output was there. It was with kernel version 5.13. Recently I installed Pop OS 21.10 because it comes with a newer version of kernel which is 5.15 and the sound works perfectly fine without any issue at all. So I think it was a driver issue and kernel 5.15 fixed everything.

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