Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 - No sound - Revisited

I had no sound on Leap 15.0, but it worked “out of the box” on Leap 15.2. I just installed Leap 15.3 and no sound, not even an audio device was detected:


pacmd list-sinks
1 sink(s) available.
  * index: 0
        name: <auto_null>
        driver: <module-null-sink.c>
        flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY
        state: SUSPENDED
        suspend cause: IDLE
        priority: 1000
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        volume steps: 65537
        muted: no
        current latency: 0.00 ms
        max request: 344 KiB
        max rewind: 344 KiB
        monitor source: 0
        sample spec: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        used by: 0
        linked by: 0
        configured latency: 0.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 2000.00 ms
        module: 14
        properties:
                device.description = "Dummy Output"
                device.class = "abstract"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card"


aplay -l
aplay: device_list:274: no soundcards found...

I tried installing kernel-source then retried these:


aplay -lpacmd list-sinks
1 sink(s) available.
  * index: 0
        name: <auto_null>
        driver: <module-null-sink.c>
        flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY
        state: SUSPENDED
        suspend cause: IDLE
        priority: 1000
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        volume steps: 65537
        muted: no
        current latency: 0.00 ms
        max request: 375 KiB
        max rewind: 375 KiB
        monitor source: 0
        sample spec: s16le 2ch 48000Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        used by: 0
        linked by: 0
        configured latency: 0.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 2000.00 ms
        module: 15
        properties:
                device.description = "Dummy Output"
                device.class = "abstract"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card"


aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Like I did a couple of years ago, I added this to the end of /etc/pulse/default.pa, but still can’t see an audio device


set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo

I do not know the details and if it is true but read somewhere 15.3 switch from pulseaudio to pipewire.

Searching for pipewire shows quite some topics also reporting problems for sound going from 15.2 to 15.3

Someone uninstalled pipewire and reinstalled pulse audio, I tried that, but no luck. Wondering if the newer kernel is the problem. No idea, though. The audio device is shown in Yast in “Sound”, but when I try to set it up, a message pops up that says the audio device isn’t found. Hope they fix this before I have to switch to 15.3 on the main PC.

I did another clean install, in case my experimenting messed something up. Now I get this:


aplay -lpacmd list-sinks
aplay:invalid option --'p'

edit: I first had unistalled pipewire and reinstalled pulseaudio

To list playback hardware devices just issue “aplay -l” or “aplay–list-devices”"

That still works, I was trying “list-sinks” as I did earlier, that doesn’t seem to work now.

For what it’s worth, I installed Leap 15.3 on a desktop, the sound works, so I assume it’s a problem with the Dell Venue and/or lack of support. Or something. That’s encouraging, anyway. Maybe I’ll put Ubuntu on the Dell.

It looks to me you are running HDMI sound and reading other topics I learned:

So can try again in some time.

My bad! Should have been

pacmd list-sinks

It’s been a long time, but I figured I would mention that I installed Linux Mint and the sound works. Perish the thought! For what it’s worth, all my other computers have Leap 15.3.

Unfortunately you never shared pertinent audio hardware information and your thread appears to be nothing more than a vague monologue. The aplay and pacmd output revealed nothing useful to anyone to assist further. You mentioned back in post #2 of this thread something about installing ‘kernel-source’…that would do nothing to help with the issue. If you ever were to revisit it, you would need to start by sharing information from the following command…

inxi -GSMAxx

Also output form the /usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh (diagnostic ALSA script) as explained here
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Audio_troubleshooting#First_method_to_run_script

Further to what deano_ferrai noted, my experience is typically, when sound works in one distribution and not in another, and further when sound works in one version of a distribution, but not in a newer version, the issues are due to either the kernel (ie alsa driver), or pulse audio, or pipewire, where some change has introduced something that was not there previous.

We are very lucky in openSUSE, that a couple of the packagers (more ?) for openSUSE are very experienced in sound (ie alsa driver developers), and if the forum users can not help solve a problem, many many times a bug report will get a fix.

Another nice thing about getting a fix in openSUSE for sound, is the packagers are VERY good at sending their fixes upstream to benefit all GNU/Linux distributions. Sadly I can not say the same about some other distributions.

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/555263-sound-is-gone-after-upgrading-to-Leap-15-3-from-Leap-15-2?p=3053787#post3053787