Headphone permanent background noise on Dell M4800

Question

When using headphones in a Dell M4800 laptop with Ubuntu 14.04, I hear constant background white noise as soon as the audio system turns on. The noise disappears only when all sound is muted.

Answer 1

A number of laptops have an issue with poorly designed internal audio, specifically other on-board systems interfering with it. This issue is especially prominent with this particular laptop, making it virtually impossible to listen to anything.

Fortunately, the issue can be solved by plugging the headphones into the docking station, instead of into the laptop itself. Afterwards, make sure that the sound levels are correct with alsamixer.

Answer 2

have you tried the Ubuntu Studio low latency Kernel? Its worth a try. You can always switch back if you want to

Answer 3

I've got a Dell laptop and had the same problem and was able to resolve it quite easily.

Run alsamixer and terminal , switch to your internal audio card (F6 -> HDA Intel PCH) and disable the "Loopback Mixing option" (select this channel using LEFT\RIGHT keys and switch it of pressing DOWN key

It is clearly noticeable that the noise is gone away once this option is disabled.

I think alsamixergui would also do the trick

Answer 4

I am facing this issue using Dell Precision M4800 with Ubuntu 22.04 (it was´t an issue before upgrading Ubuntu 20.04 or in MS W10).

Noise is heard only in Ubuntu after plug in earphones and quiets if a sound played or muted completely. Tone of noise change if there some harmonics in power.

I found few solutions in: Strange noise in headphones when no sound is played. As this can´t be duplicate, as description list different hardware and Ubuntu release. I will list here what tested working:

• Disable audio adapter power saving at driver level

  echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller
  echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
  

  or add line below to modprobe.conf for permanent settings

  options snd_hda_intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=0
  

• Disable suspend module at pulse audio level

  Command following line in /etc/pulse/default.pa and /etc/pulse/system.pa

  load-module module-suspend-on-idle
  

• Add a loopback any source with very small gain just to avoid power saving get activated.

  Example: Using alsamixer, change "Front Mic Boost" value from "0%" to "1%"