ThinkPad T420s docking station: no sound on external speakers

Question

When I plug external speakers into the docking station for Thinkpad T420s i get no sound (internal speakers mute).

P.S. I know the solution but it seems to be ok post problem specific solution in form of question and answer.

Answer 1

The solution is to add line

options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad

to the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf.

After that you have to reload alsa:

killall pulseaudio
sudo alsa force-reload
pulseaudio -D

This can be applicable on other thinkpad laptops.

You can also try different models (see HdaIntelSoundHowto at help.ubuntu.com).

If this method doesn't help you can to try to debug hda-intel using HDA Analyzer. For example for my laptop I could use:

/usr/local/bin/hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x01c SET_PIN_WIDGET_CONTROL 0x40

to enable sound on external speakers. But it is not very good solution since you have to do it manually each time you plug external speakers.

hda-verb program can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/tiwai/misc/hda-verb-0.3.tar.gz.