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I'm a relatively new Linux user trying to use Ubuntu to get some extra life out of an old Toshiba Satellite C655, but am experiencing audio issues. I have tried Ubuntu 16.04, 16.10 and 17.04 as well as Debian 8.2 and have had the same trouble with each. I am currently running 17.04.

When I first boot up, sound works through the laptop's internal speakers. After three to five minutes, however, the speakers stop working. I can plug headphones in and get sound from them. If I reboot, the sound works again for the first three to five minutes, then stops.

I removed/purged both alsa-base and pulseaudio then rebooted. The sound worked normally and never cut out.

I reinstalled alsa-base without pulseaudio and rebooted. The sound cut out after a few minutes. That seems to indicate the issue is with ALSA.

I tried following the troubleshooting steps listed at this site: http://alsa.opensrc.org/TroubleShooting

According to that everything checks out correctly, although one step makes mention of an "External Amplifier" switch in alsamixer that I have not been able to locate.

I also checked at the official ALSA wiki but it seems to be horribly out of date. It lists only Intel cards up to the ICH7 family, while the card in my Satellite is an ICH9. It also recommends running a python script called HDA-Analyzer using pygtk2 or python-gtk, but I cannot seem to locate either of those packages, and the script does not run correctly under python3.

Additionally, I tried the suggestion given here: Ubuntu 16.04: Sound and video problems

Disabling speech-dispatcher and rebooting did not correct the problem.

If anyone out there has any idea how to get the sound working correctly on my laptop with alsa, I would greatly appreciate any assistance!

Stephen 'Wolf' Fisher
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    Look at dmesg | tail after the speakers stop working. Hopefully, it would provide some clues. It is interesting that "sound worked normally" with both alsa and pulseaudio removed. How is it even possible? – mikewhatever Jun 10 '17 at 13:22
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    See https://askubuntu.com/questions/912848/identify-element-requesting-sound-chip-to-sleep/912879#912879 – heynnema Jun 10 '17 at 13:27
  • @heynnema Thank you for your response. That does seem to be the problem, as I'm seeing the same D0/D3 change in codec#0 and sudo hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x1f SET_POWER_STATE 0 brought sound back for a few minutes. I apologize for what is likely a complete newb question, but as recent versions of Ubuntu no longer use rc.local, can you tell me where I need to put the line to turn on power management? – Stephen 'Wolf' Fisher Jun 12 '17 at 19:54
  • Please see my partial answer. Please remember to vote/accept it if it was helpful. – heynnema Jun 12 '17 at 20:02

1 Answers1

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From the comments...

See Identify element requesting sound chip to sleep

For a temporary fix that will extend the time that the sound will operate...

Edit this file...

  • gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

  • add the following to the end of the file...

    # Turn on power management to keep the sound working a little longer

    options snd-hda-intel power_save=1

  • save the file and quit gedit

  • reboot
heynnema
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