Troubleshooting audio for HyperX headset

Jakke

10/26/23, 6:07 AM

I am running Ubuntu 22.04 and have a HyperX Cloud Alpha S 7.1 surround headset.

Initially, everything was working perfectly and I could use the 7.1 surround settings. Since a couple months, I can only use it in stereo because in surround settings, the sound is completely out of whack.

When I go into Sound settings / Output section I have the following options:

Analog Output - HyperX Cloud Alfa S
Digital Output - HyperX(S/PDIF) Cloud Alfa S

With the Digital Output, when I press the Test button, I can only test front-left and front-right. Both are sounding as expected. Underneath I see a Balance slider that is greyed out.

With the Analog Output, I also have a Configuration drop-down which allows me to select Analog Stereo Output (which gives me pretty much the same as the digital output) and Analog Surround 7.1 Output. When I select the latter, clicking on Test shows me the 7 speakers and subwoofer.

When I then test the different speakers, I have 4 speakers that are extra quiet (front-left, -center, -right and side-right) and 3 speakers that extra loud (side-left, rear-left and -right). The "subwoofer" has always been a joke and plays some white noise on regular sound level.

I have no idea how to troubleshoot/fix this so I can use my headset in full surround again. I've never installed any drivers, Ubuntu recognizes the hardware immediately when I plugged it in the first time and I've never tried to update the drivers (quite honestly, I wouldn't know how).

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David

10/26/23, 6:15 AM

Was there a kernel update and after you had this issue?

Jakke

10/26/23, 6:25 AM

Honestly, I've been so busy lately that I pushed this issue back and I can't remember precisely what happened when it stopped working. I update my system daily so it's quite possible.

David

10/26/23, 6:30 AM

So when booting in grub choose an older kernel and see if that fixes it.

Jakke

10/26/23, 6:42 AM

I've only got the 5.15 available and that's the one with the problem. I just pulled in 5.17 but that one renders my system unbootable... so that's a whole different issue.

David

10/26/23, 6:52 AM

Very weird you must have deleted some. Ubuntu always keeps at least the last kernel.

Jakke

10/26/23, 6:58 AM

Yes I know and it does. I've got both 5.17 and 5.15. I pulled in 5.17 this morning with an update but it rendered my system unbootable, so I only have 1 working kernel at the moment. I guess I could download a previous kernel to try ... I'll try this afternoon and see what it does.

David

10/26/23, 7:15 AM

5.17 is not an official supported kernel for Ubuntu. I have only ever seen this one on some Dell oem I have seen 5.17 cause many issues and would suggest it never be used.

Jakke

10/26/23, 7:51 AM

Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/140148/discussion-between-jakke-and-david).

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