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I have a Dell Inspiron N5110 that won't play sound. To be more specific, I can't hear any sound from the speakers when running Ubuntu 16.04. I also dual boot Windows 7 on the machine and sound works fine there.

Here is an exhaustive list of screenshots, command output, and troubleshooting information:

Hardware

$ lspci
...
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
...

pavucontrol

enter image description here

alsamixer

enter image description here

pactl info

Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 30
Server Protocol Version: 30
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 7
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: nathan
Host Name: nathan-laptop
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 8.0
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Cookie: 1da0:01c2

ps aux | grep pulse

nathan    5952  1.5  0.1 416424 10576 ?        S<l  16:01   0:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog

dmesg | grep snd

[    8.215325] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for 92HD87B1/3: line_outs=1 (0xd/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[    8.215330] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.215333] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0xb/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.215335] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    8.215337] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[    8.215340] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:      Internal Mic=0x11
[    8.215342] snd_hda_codec_idt hdaudioC0D0:      Mic=0xa

Let me know if more information is needed and I can easily add it to the question.

Further Updates

  • ALSA doesn't seem to be working at all — aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Right.wav was completely silent
5
  • 1
    One thing missing (don't know if it helps any though) is: cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec on my system it yields: Codec: IDT 92HD91BXX Codec: Intel PantherPoint HDMI Apr 9, 2017 at 23:27
  • 3
    Before looking at Pulse Audis: does ALSA work at all? Try aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Right.wav.
    – Takkat
    Apr 10, 2017 at 7:08
  • @Takkat doesn't seem to work; updated the question. Apr 13, 2017 at 20:32
  • Are you able to hear sound through your headphones? If you can't, it might be an audio driver issue. Have you tried going to settings>software & updates>additional drivers and then looking for something not enabled? Maybe you have an nvidia GPU that's using the wrong driver.
    – user304263
    Apr 14, 2017 at 0:15
  • Does it works with headphones¿? If yes try to plug in a headset, then try to switch output (with headphones plugged in) to speakers. Check if it works then. I had the same issue with (may be) the same Dell model and started working after a small output-switching game with headphones plugged in.
    – dgonzalez
    Apr 17, 2017 at 20:16

4 Answers 4

1

I had problems with my audio recently on an HP laptop. After reading a few articles, I installed pulseaudio and kmix, updated everything, rebooted and then everything was fine. I am pretty new to this so this may be a long way round but it worked for me.

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio 
sudo apt-get install kmix
sudo apt-get update

Reboot and everything worked for me. Hopefully this may have helped.

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You could install the packages rhythmbox and amarok. They have the necessary drivers for sound-output.

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox amarok

sudo reboot

2
  • Any proof that they have necessary driver for sound-output? It's typically not media players job to provide driver
    – Anwar
    Apr 20, 2017 at 8:42
  • @Anwar - I know from a similiar thread, which I answered same way in earlier Ubuntu distro, that this was successful. Apr 21, 2017 at 13:55
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Since the release of Ubuntu 16.04 there have been many updates to the pulse audio and its related programs. I recommend you to update anything related to audio at first. Ubuntu 17.04 is very good at handling audio devices compared to 16.04 which was terrible and 16.10 which was better, so you could try Ubuntu 17.04 on a live CD and install if you find it solves your problem.

0
   amixer sset 'Master' 50%

Try setting the volume with these.

   amixer -q sset Master toggle

For mute and unmute.

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