How to troubleshoot headphone issues?

emmanuell2025

I have a friend with an ASUS ROG Zephyrus gu502 that I recommended Solus to. He says he cannot use headphones and they don't appear anywhere in the settings when plugged in. What steps should we take to identify the issue?

Justin

emmanuell2025 Test the headphones elsewhere, check sound outputs in Audio settings.

viyoriya

emmanuell2025

in terminal
alsamixer
click F6 check your sound card and change and try

other option
check your sound card in terminal
pactl list sinks short

if you want to check with different card then
pactl set-default-sink <your card no>
(if you want to set alsa for permanently ) check
/usr/share/defaults/alsa/asound.conf instead of type pulsechange it to type hw with your card no for all the entities.

type hw
card <your card no from pactl list sinks short>

emmanuell2025

The only sound outputs that show up in Audio settings are the speakers. The headphones and headphone jack both work fine in Windows.

Justin

emmanuell2025 What audio chipset is it using?

craigtoyoracer

Looking at the spec's the laptop has only 3.5mm audio jack and audio jack mic-in.
Thus there is no headphone in the "Settings"

just plug in and play. 🤣

emmanuell2025

craigtoyoracer Here's what happens, plug headphones...no play. Only through speakers

emmanuell2025

Audio devices from lspci -v:

01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 11ff
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at a5080000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Cannon Lake PCH cAVS
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 165
Memory at a55a0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Memory at a5100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [80] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

EQLucky

emmanuell2025 I somewhat had a similar issue with my Acer Predator 15 long ago when trying to enable the 2.1 sound system. Whichever was the distribution, I only had sound output through the subwoofer and NOT the speakers (heahdphones jack worked as expected).
Being another completely different thing, the core is the same: Sound output.
I finally fixed with alsa-tools and its wonderful hdajackretask.
I am at work right now and and going from memory, but I bet it's somehow like this:

Install alsa-tools: sudo eopkg it alsa-tools.
Now, lauch hdajackretask as sudo: sudo hdajackretask.
It will open something like this (googled for it):
Look for the proper output at the top. i.e.: I had the laptop's sound card and the HDMI output.
Then, at the right, there are some "Options". Check "Show unconnected pins".
At "Pin Configuration", there should be way more pins now.
Check for the ones with "Headphone". There should be one which isn't overridden and active. If there isn't any like that, then try to override one.
Click "Install boot override". Accept. Restart. Check.
Repeat steps 2 to 9 if it didnt work.

You must be patient with this method, it's a trial and error one. It took me like an hour to be able to make the subwoofer AND both stereo speakers properly, but it's completely worth it.
Cheers!

emmanuell2025

EQLucky We tried that and I guess we made some progress. It thinks that the headphones are connected when overriding certain pins because the sound doesn't go through the speakers, but there is still no sound through the headphones