No sound (dummy output) on Inspiron 7000 using Ubuntu 24.04

Question

I have a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 gaming notebook. I recently Dual Booted with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 24.04. After installing the Drivers with the command sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall , my speaker stopped working and the system had no sound. Meanwhile, on Windows it works normally. When putting on headphones, the system also does not recognize them. I never had this problem with Ubuntu 23.10 or 22.04. In audio output devices, only "Dummy Output" appears.

I already tried all the answers in StackOverflow, like force reload alsa, kill pulse audio, make a lot of changes in the /etc/modprob/alsa-base.conf, update BIOS...

$ inxi -SMA
System:
  Host: x Kernel: 6.8.0-31-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
  Desktop: GNOME v: 46.0 Distro: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0P84C9 v: A01 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell
    v: 1.15.0 date: 08/30/2021
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel CM238 HD Audio driver: snd_soc_avs
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP107GL High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-31-generic status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6th-10th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 05)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 630 (rev 04)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 31)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Thermal Subsystem (rev 31)
00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 31)
00:15.1 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Serial IO I2C Controller #1 (rev 31)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 31)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation HM170/QM170 Chipset SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 31)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #6 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM175 Chipset LPC/eSPI Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Power Management Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation CM238 HD Audio Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family SMBus (rev 31)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)

$ lspci -nnk | grep -A2 Audio
00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation CM238 HD Audio Controller [8086:a171] (rev 31)
    Subsystem: Dell CM238 HD Audio Controller [1028:0798]
    Kernel driver in use: snd_soc_avs
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs
--
01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller [10de:0fb9] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Dell GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller [1028:0798]
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I'm a beginner in Linux. Please help me and explain in the most layman's way possible.

Answer 1

This fixed it for me on a similar Dell Inspiron.

Audio not working. Ubuntu 24.04

You have to add these two lines to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

options snd-hda-intel model=auto
blacklist snd_soc_avs

This is specfically what it is doing:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto:

This line configures the behavior of the snd-hda-intel driver, which is responsible for handling High Definition Audio (often associated with Intel sound cards) in Linux.

The model=auto option allows the driver to automatically detect the audio codec used by your hardware and select the appropriate model settings for it. This is helpful when the default configuration doesn't align perfectly with the hardware capabilities, potentially solving issues where certain speaker or microphone functionalities are not recognized correctly.

blacklist snd_soc_avs:

This line prevents the snd_soc_avs module from being loaded by the Linux kernel. snd_soc_avs stands for Sound Open Firmware Audio DSP for Intel platforms with Audio Video Synchronization, which can be part of the sound handling in modern Intel systems.

By blacklisting this module, you prevent it from interfering with the main snd-hda-intel driver. It appears that in your case, snd_soc_avs was causing conflicts or was not fully compatible with your specific audio setup, leading to the issues you were experiencing. By stopping it from loading, you enable the system to rely on other, perhaps more compatible, modules to handle audio processing.

I am not sure why this is a problem now. It worked fine in 22.04 and 23.10 without me having to make this change.

Answer 2

Apparently, pipewire-media-session in Ubuntu 22.04 was dropped in favour of wireplumber for Ubuntu 24.04.

Here is what needs to be done after a do-release-upgrade:

$ sudo apt purge pipewire-media-session
$ sudo apt install wireplumber
$ sudo reboot

Answer 3

I had the same issue as yours. I fixed it by doing what the first message said to do.

By the way, to access the /etc folder, you can easily do that using the terminal by typing cd /etc/ , then find the path explained above.