26

The last update that came through looked like a kernel update.

Suddenly my speakers started buzzing. It stops whenever I open the Gnome sound settings window. So now I've just got the sounds settings window open all the time in the background on a different workspace.

If I close the sound settings window, the buzzing starts again shortly after.

Is anyone else experiencing this? My speakers are plugged in via the headphone jack. I have tried different speakers with a different cable and the same thing occurs. Laptop internal speakers seem to be fine.

Improve this question
3
  • Yes, I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 and I'm experiencing exactly what you describe. My speakers are connected through the headphone jack. They emit a dull buzzing/humming sound. If some other sound plays or the Sound settings window is opened, the buzzing stops.
    – John Karahalis
    Jun 8, 2020 at 0:50
  • This worked for me. The sound i got was more of a repeating tat, tat, tat type of noise though.
    – olejorgenb
    Apr 21, 2021 at 9:33
  • Maybe this is too far fetched, but I tried nearly all solutions out there and what worked for me was downgrading the kernel use this. I was getting precisely the tat, tat, tat, sound only on the right headphone.
    – cimentadaj
    Apr 4, 2022 at 18:18

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
35

I've had the same thing and followed the instructions on this solved thread and it hasn't had any fuzz/buzzing since.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2417018

Really simple open the terminal, sudo su and then password. Then enter gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. It will open a text document, at the end of the document copy and paste the following code:

options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N

Save, restart and it should be fixed!

Hope this helps.

Improve this answer
5
  • This seems to have worked for me. Thank you!
    – John Karahalis
    Jun 14, 2020 at 7:42
  • Sorry for the late reply. Thanks very much, it appears to be working now!
    – user636763
    Jun 26, 2020 at 4:41
  • Thanks, this solution works in Ubuntu 20.10, MSI B450 Tomahawk MAXII motherboard with the "AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller".
    – surya_hs
    Mar 24, 2021 at 2:36
  • Thank you so much for this. It was driving me insane. My hack attempt was running silence.mp3 in loop on VLC but this finally fixed it!
    – supersan
    Jan 20, 2022 at 10:02
  • Just wanted you to know you have saved me hours of frustration. This completely fixed the issue, thank you so much.
    – user2490003
    Jan 25, 2022 at 19:55
4

If, like me, the accepted answer didn't work for you, it could be because your power saving settings are managed by tlp. Those settings can be found in this file here:

/etc/default/tlp

If you open that file with your favourite editor, you should find something like:

# Enable audio power saving for Intel HDA, AC97 devices (timeout in secs).
# A value of 0 disables, >=1 enables power saving (recommended: 1).
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_AC=1
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_BAT=1

And you can disable by changing those values to 0

You'll need to restart tlp as so:

sudo tlp start
Improve this answer
3

In my case the accepted answer did not work. What worked was turning off power save in /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save file by replacing 0 with 1 (you need to have root privileges).

You can also use these commands:

cat /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
echo "0" | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

Source: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/weird-static-noise-in-headset-on-ubuntu-20-04-a-4175681180/

EDIT: Unfortunately, the power save settings reset after the reboot. I didn't find better solution though.

Improve this answer
2

I solved this issue with answers of Chris and Javier.

First of all, Install tlp package.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt update
sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw

Second, make sound power save parameters disable in /etc/tlp.conf file.

SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_AC=0
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_BAT=0

I didn't restart computer and it works perfectly.

Update

After some moments, noise appear again.

With Baa's answer, I could solve this issue.

In file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, Edit these lines

; default-sample-rate
; alternate-sample-rate

To below.

default-sample-rate = 48000
alternate-sample-rate = 48000

After that, restart pulse audio.

pulseaudio -k

And it works fine.

Not sure why, but changes below are automatically changed when I boot again.

default-sample-rate = 48000
alternate-sample-rate = 48000

I gotta find way to fix it.

Improve this answer
2
  • You could add a startup script to change it on boot.More info here.
    – Rishon_JR
    Jan 25, 2023 at 11:56
  • This is the real root cause, thanks so much for the tip. I'm unsure why your samplerate is getting overwritten, but mine is persisting between boots and this fixes it entirely. Appreciate your answer being the only right one after suffering for months.
    – Kamel
    Jun 24, 2023 at 23:33
1

I had the same problem. After Ubuntu was updated my external sound card Focusrite start buzzing, especially on low frequency sound.

After reading some topics i found that problem can be with kernel.

In my case i had 5.13.0-39-generic kernel version and after update to 5.17.2.051702-generic problem disappeared.

topic which helped: https://www.how2shout.com/linux/how-to-change-default-kernel-in-ubuntu-22-04-20-04-lts/

Steps which helped me:

  • check version of kernel uname -r
  • download bash script wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pimlie/ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh/master/ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh
  • make executable chmod +x ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh
  • move that file to /usr/local/bin
  • check available version ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh -c
  • update to the latest version sudo ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh -i
  • reboot
Improve this answer
0
1

Since it's the one of the top google results related to "Ubuntu update sound noise" searches, I'll add my own answer.

After update to 21.10 (if memory serves), bit later today - to 22.04 - my laptop's headphone output was buzzing like hell, with speakers, with headphones etc.

so, alsamixer, setting auto-mute to "enabled" et voilaenter image description here

I don't know what is auto-mute, or why it affects sound in such a harsh manner, but that worked. Maybe I should find out related config options. Didn't reboot yet

Improve this answer
0

nothing worked for me, i had to install and configure tlp and now have a little little noise

as mentioned, sound powersaving should be disabled so the sound more or less stops the noise

https://linrunner.de/tlp/settings/audio.html

so,

  1. install tlp
  2. configure tlp at /etc/tlp.conf
Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .