Sound card is suddenly not being recognised

Question

Just an hour ago sound was working fine, I suspended my laptop and since I have come back to it I no longer have sound and my sound card is not being detected.

Ubuntu 18.04, Thinkpad E570. I have tried using both the headphone jack and the built in speakers.

I will summarize the steps I have already tried(In roughly chronological order):

First:

pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload

followed by a reboot. No affect.

Second:

sudo apt remove --purge alsa-base pulseaudio

followed by

sudo apt install alsa-base pulseaudio && sudo alsa force-reload

and a reboot. No affect.

Third:

sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-'uname -r' alsa-base alsa-firmware-loaders alsa-oss alsa-source alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsamixergui

reboot, no affect.

Then tried to install drivers from here, reboot, no affect.

Hopefully helpful outputs:

cat /proc/asound/cards
> --- no soundcards ---

pacmd list-cards
> 0 card(s) available.

lsmod | grep snd_hda_intel

uname -r
>4.15.0-33-generic  

lspci
>00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 02)

>00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 620 (rev 02)

>00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 21)

>00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem (rev 21)

>00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP CSME HECI #1 (rev 21)

>00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 21)

>00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port (rev f1)

>00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)

>00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f1)

>00:1d.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d1a (rev f1)

>00:1d.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d1b (rev f1)

>00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 21)

>00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC (rev 21)

>00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus (rev 21)
>02:00.0 SD Host controller: O2 Micro, Inc. SD/MMC Card Reader Controller (rev 01)

>03:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM961/PM961

>04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)

>05:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8265 / 8275 (rev 78)

lsmod | grep snd_hda_intel used to have output, but I dont have a copy of that handy unfortunately.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I reached out to Lenovo support and they suggested updating the BIOS using this utility, this solved my problem.

Answer 2

I had the same problem, using a HP ZBOOK G4, but after running:

pulseaudio --start

the problem was solved and I was able to see the sound drivers. Here is the sound setting panel after running the command. I hope that it helps.