ALC 887 no audio

[dh1989]

Hello everyone,

I'm a recent convert to Debian from Ubuntu. I've been running Ubuntu and xUbuntu for the past several years so I have some decent familiarity with getting things running with Linux. I just installed Buster on a new build which has an Asus P8Z77-V LX2 motherboard running ALC 887 audio on board. Unfortunately the audio has not been working. Sometimes I get no audio at all, and some times I get a nonstop tick tick tick noise. If I play an audio file the noise changes to more of a buzz. Sometimes the speaker icon in Gnome flickers quickly while it makes the pop or buzz noises. I've tried repeatedly removing and reinstalling pulseaudio. I've also gone into the mixer and tried various settings. From what I understand, ALSA is now build into the kernel so there is no way to reinstall ALSA. I should note that in addition to the onboard rear audio jacks, there are front case headphone and mic jacks which are connected via a header on the board. Same issue is present when plugging headphones into the headphone port.

Here is some data:

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cat /proc/version
Linux version 4.19.0-14-amd64 (debian-kernel@lists.debian.org) (gcc version 8.3.0 (Debian 8.3.0-6)) #1 SMP Debian 4.19.171-2 (2021-01-30)

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lspci -v | grep -A 8 -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device a002
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
Memory at f7c10000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

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lsmod | grep sound
soundcore              16384  1 snd

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


I have an NVidia GTX1660 installed GPU with HDMI and Display Port outputs on it. I haven't tried HDMI audio out (I don't have a device that accepts HDMI for audio).

I've spent several hours on this with no luck. Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[sunrat]

First a couple of points. I doubt anything has ever been fixed by reinstalling pulseaudio, except maybe by incidentally purging its config files. It's usually the configs if PA is the problem. Here it most likely is not. ALSA has always been part of the kernel.

Big difference between *buntuz and Debian is Debian doesn't include firmware by default. It's usually easiest to use the "unofficial" installer which includes non-free firmware.
Modify your sources to add contrib non-free to the main repos, then install intel-microcode, firmware-intel-sound, and firmware-misc-nonfree

Also search for how to use journalctl, it can be invaluable for finding pertinent error messages.

[dh1989]

Thank you, I was aware of the non-free firmware and had added the misc package, but not those specific Intel packages. Unfortunately after installing them and a reboot I still have the same issue. I opened pavucontrol and went to configuration. When I click the built in audio drop down menu, I can see the Digital 5.1+Analog Stereo Input and Analog Stereo Input options quickly flickering with (Unplugged) showing up and then going away. I went through journalctl but am not exactly sure of what I'm looking for at this point.

[sunrat]

Intel HDA audio mostly works out of the box, especially with older boards like yours. I have a 14YO one that works perfectly.
Check pavucontrol to make sure the correct output is selected. Check alsamixer for levels (install alsa-utils if you don't have it).
Your lspci shows snd_hda_intel is loaded which should be the right driver.
Does sound work if you boot a live distro like MX from a USB stick? Could even be a hardware fault.

Try searching something like "debian Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset"
ALC 887 is a Realtek audio codec, maybe installing firmware-realtek might help. Or maybe not but can't hurt.

For journalctl, the most common way I use it is to search errors in current boot:

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journalctl -b -p 3

[dh1989]

I ran that journalctl command and had no audio related issues. Ran an Ubuntu 20.04 live session off the install DVD. Same issue, flickering speaker icon in Gnome and the master volume flashes erratically up and down whenever I plug into the line in port. This looks more like a hardware problem?

[sunrat]

This looks more like a hardware problem?

Looks a bit that way if it's the same on a different distro. I've pretty much exhausted my usual audio software diagnostic ideas.