[SOLVED] Conexant CX20722 sound not working on Jessie ...

[abhikpal]

Hey,

Yesterday I installed Debian 8.5 Jessie on my new Dell Inspiron 13 7359 machine. Everything seems to be working fine but the laptop is producing no sound.

• * The laptop came pre-installed with Windows 10 (which has been wiped out now) and speakers were working there.
  * I checked alsamixer; nothing was on mute there
  * When a headphone is plugged in, the device list in Settings > Sound changes accordingly and shows a headphone (there is no sound through the headphone).
  * output of aplay -l

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  abhikpal@athena:~$ aplay -l
  **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
  card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CX20722 Analog [CX20722 Analog]
    Subdevices: 1/1
    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
    Subdevices: 1/1
    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  

  * output of dmesg | grep sound

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  abhikpal@athena:~$ dmesg | grep sound
  [    2.615608] sound hdaudioC0D0: CX20722: BIOS auto-probing.
  [    2.615940] sound hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig: line_outs=1 (0x17/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
  [    2.615942] sound hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
  [    2.615943] sound hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x16/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
  [    2.615944] sound hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
  [    2.615945] sound hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
  [    2.615947] sound hdaudioC0D0:      Internal Mic=0x1a
  [    2.615949] sound hdaudioC0D0:      Mic=0x19
  [    2.616855] sound hdaudioC0D0: Enable sync_write for stable communication
  [    2.649314] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sound/card0/hdaudioC0D0/input7
  [    2.649995] input: HDA Intel PCH Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sound/card0/input9
  [    2.650239] input: HDA Intel PCH Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sound/card0/input10
  [    2.650319] input: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sound/card0/input11
  

  * lspci

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  abhikpal@athena:~$ lspci
  00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 1904 (rev 08)
  00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 1916 (rev 07)
  00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 1903 (rev 08)
  00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d2f (rev 21)
  00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d60 (rev 21)
  00:15.1 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d61 (rev 21)
  00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d3a (rev 21)
  00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d03 (rev 21)
  00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d14 (rev f1)
  00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d48 (rev 21)
  00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d21 (rev 21)
  00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9d70 (rev 21)
  00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 9d23 (rev 21)
  01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 3165 (rev 79)
  

  * cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec

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  abhikpal@athena:~$ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
  Codec: Conexant CX20722
  Codec: Intel ID 2809
  

Googling around revealed that some Ubuntu users have experienced with the same card and laptop (Dell Inspiron 13 7359). But these "bugs" range all the way from unreliable jack detection [^1], noises from the card [^2], to lack of automute [^3]. However, one bug does mention no sound at all [^4].

Digging a bit further revealed a couple of things:

• * The patch that adds support for the CX20722 codes was added. Though I was only able to find this patch for the 3.16 kernel on the Ubuntu website [^5].
  * The hardware datasheet [^6] lists Linux under "system compatibility."
  * There are M$ Win 10 drivers available at the Dell product support website,

Some Ubuntu users have managed to get sound of the same card and laptop model, is there any way I could get there? I have not upgraded the kernel or done anything of that sort. Should I use a backport and then upgrade the kernel? Or is there a way I can use the windows drivers to get sound on my machine?

A couple of pointers would be helpful; happy to do the necessary digging/reading/learning for myself. Please let me know if additional information is required, you want to see the output of more commands, etc.

Thanks a lot!

--

post scriptum: wifi (Intel 3165) is also not working, but I shall look into that after figuring out the sound)
post super scriptum: I was using Ubuntu for the last two-ish years on my older laptop (and mint on my desktop), decided to try Debian when I got myself a new machine. I don't think I want to switch back.

--
[^1]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1521606
[^2]: http://osdir.com/ml/ubuntu-bugs/2015-08/msg11701.html
[^3]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1577349
[^4]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1577347
[^5]: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kerne ... 58136.html
[^6]: http://www.conexant.com/wp-content/uplo ... X20722.pdf

[bw123]

have not upgraded the kernel or done anything of that sort. Should I use a backport and then upgrade the kernel?

That's probably the thing to do. Shouldn't cause any harm, but I always leave the working stock kernel installed also when using backport kernel.

Or is there a way I can use the windows drivers to get sound on my machine?

nah, you won't get anywhere with that. You don't need taint, just a little persistance.

sometimtes this is gootd too

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dmesg | grep -i firm

[abhikpal]

Thanks a lot! Updating the kernel solved the issue.

I'm reproducing the steps here.

I first added the required sources in /etc/apt/sources.list by appending

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deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main

This was followed by a quick apt-get update. Next, the required kernel was installed using

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# apt-get install -t jessie-backports linux-image-amd64

The video mode setting for the newer kernels was causing trouble (blank screen with a blinking cursor on the top left); this was quicky fixed by adding nodemodeset after logging into the older kernel. The /etc/default/grub file was edited and

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quite"

was changed to

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset quite"

Everything works perfectly now (even wifi is back!). Thanks a lot! I was probably being a bit too protective of my fresh Jessie install. Even headphone detection, etc works flawlessly and I don't have any of the bugs that the ubuntu folks are reporting.

[bw123]

That was a great post, thanks for doing your homework, and posting all the info.

and welcome to the forum!