I am running Kubuntu 24.04 and I have an issue I can’t seem to figure out. I am using my onboard intel sound card with optical output. The sound is great, but every 5-10 minutes the sound turns into a loud mess of noise (its hard to describe, kinda like static).

After some tinkering I have determined that what is happening is the sound card is outputting volume much higher than expected. If I turn the volume down to just above mute, I can hear the sound normally its just badly over-driven. The volume levels in my mixer look fine, so I’m really confused. If I am in firefox, muting the sound for about 10 seconds will resolve the issue when I unmute, but if I am playing a game, I have to quit to fix it.

I’ve been searching the web for several days and found a couple possible solutions that involve disabling snd_hda_intel powersaving modes via module options. But they have had no effect.

I also found one article with a nearly exact description of my issue on Archlinux forums, but the guy never figured it out, it just started working after an update one day.

Is there anything else I can try to fix this?

  • Vitaly
    3•6 months ago

    Try reinstalling pipewire or pulseaudio

    • KronusdarkOPEnglish
      2•6 months ago

      I just installed last week, could that really be messed up already?

      • Vitaly
        2•6 months ago

        You can always try, it fixed my issue when I couldn’t hear anything on my laptop yesterday(I run pop os)

        • KronusdarkOPEnglish
          7•6 months ago

          its been 2 hours and no issues… looks like it might have solved it. 🤞

        • KronusdarkOPEnglish
          2•6 months ago

          just did pipewire, we shall see.

        • KronusdarkOPEnglish
          1•6 months ago

          So long-term it did not resolve my issue. I also tried updating pipewire using PPA repositories. still have the issue.