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153375
February 23rd, 2014 14:00
XPS 13 (9333) - headphones background noise
Hi, I opened a thread in another section and I was told this a more suitable section for my question. I just quote myself, here the original discussion.
Hi,
I bought this machine thinking that it might supported any Linux distro without many issues and in general it does (well, it seems that the light sensor is not detected), however there's a very annoying problem.
When headphones are used, there's constant background noise which goes away only when the audio is muted or when the audio card is disabled to save power. However, I still can hear in a completely silent room some noise when the card is disabled, things are perfect only on mute. Also, when the audio card is disabled, there's a loud and short noise (this last thing happens also on another machine using and Intel audio card).
However, there are no issues when Windows is used. Is there a chance to have this fixed, considering that the dev edition is meant to work with Ubuntu?
jayfree
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August 9th, 2014 17:00
Hi
I just stumble upon your post looking at some other issues, and wanted to let you know I found a fix that works for my M3800. After googling for what seems like forever I found a post that says to run the following two commands as root, and it worked, don't remember where I found it. Hope this helps.
hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC1D0 0x0c SET_AMP_GAIN_MUTE 0x5180
hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC1D0 0x0c SET_AMP_GAIN_MUTE 0x6180
There was also a python script that did the sane thing but I dont know how to attach files here.
Jeff
tobiasq
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February 28th, 2014 05:00
Hi,
I have a Dell XPS 13 9333 developer edition which has the continuous noise from the RHS of the unit as discussed in this thread:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19538215/20572972.aspx
I've had the motherboard, io card and keyboard replaced and this didn't fix the issue. But, in relation to the headphone noise, I have an underlying constant electrical noise in the left hand channel of the headphone output which is present when the audio is enabled. It doesn't matter which distribution I'm running - the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with patches that came with the unit or a recent Archlinux install, the noise is still present.
I currently have a support issue open with Dell and I'll update if there is any resolution.
kfnmpah
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February 28th, 2014 12:00
I'm aware of that problem and I also have weird electrical noises, two kind of noises actually.
One is probably the one that most of the users are complaining about and it's the high pitched noise that goes away playing with the keyboard backlight. I can always getting rid of it, either setting the backlight at the max brightness or disabling it. Sometimes full brightness disables it, sometimes I have to turn it off, I don't know why.
I also noticed that when the LED below the trackpad turns orange and pulses (it happened once for now. I read it does this when the battery is fully charged, I wonder why it doesn't happen always), the intensity of the noise changed all togheter with the pulsating LED.
The "funny" thing of this noise is that I can hear it through my headphones when the audio card is disabled. I can also hear some other noises while the audio card is disabled, for example "find /usr" will cause some noises. This and the annoying pop-sound are the reasons why I disable the power saving mode.
The other kind of noise I think is related to the C-states of the CPU, maybe the GPU also. It's mostly noticeable while plugged in, when the laptop is usually working at the max performance. The noise goes all together with my actions, like scrolling etc. Disabling all the C-state but state0 or state8, will make the noise constant::
#force state8
for i in 0 1 2 3; do for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$i/cpuidle/state$j/disable; done; done
#re-enable all the states
for i in 0 1 2 3; do for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8; do echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$i/cpuidle/state$j/disable; done; done
#force state0
for i in 0 1 2 3; do for j in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8; do echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$i/cpuidle/state$j/disable; done; done
I'm more annoyed by the constant background noise though. I also hate the loud pop-sound that I can hear when the card is enabled or disabled. There are no issues using Windows.
Here another bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/1252733
kfnmpah
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August 9th, 2014 18:00
Oh yes, I forgot to update this post.
I'm aware of it, but I'm now using kernel 3.16 in which the problem is solved.
The python script can be found in the bug report linked in my previous post, comment #34.
Thank you for posting the solution.
EDIT: just to be clear, the fix in the driver applies only to the XPS13 9333 and since 3.17 to the XPS 15 as well. This is the fix.
just_a_dude91
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October 9th, 2014 20:00
@Jayfree 's root commands worked well for me. Thanks.
Marstalschoner
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October 30th, 2014 02:00
Hey,
I tried @jayfree: 's commands too. They worked very well... until yesterday when I recognized that annoying background noise again! Does anyone have any idea why?
My system: Ubuntu 14.04 on XPS13 (9333) with kernel 3.13.
May 14.10 on 3.16 be a solution; has anyone tried it yet?
kfnmpah
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October 30th, 2014 02:00
As I wrote in my post above, the problem is fixed starting from 3.16. Since you use Ubuntu, you can use the ALSA daily build, look for the PPA.
It's weird that the command stopped working, maybe your audio card is on a different path or maybe the power saving mode is reverting the changes, but the latest ALSA driver does what those commands do to get rid of the noise.
Marstalschoner
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October 30th, 2014 03:00
Hey again,
yep, it's a bit strange. I just tried the solution using the python-script from http://xps13-9333.appspot.com/#background_noise. So far it works fine. If the white noise appears again I'll try the other options.
Thank you!