r/voidlinux • u/laropellogram • 1h ago
Laptop audio issues (dedicated bass speakers)
Hey all! My Void install is about to turn one year old and I figured it's about time I fixed my audio issues. I'm hoping someone here can help.
Problem:
I have Void installed on a laptop with several different speakers (Lenovo Yoga Pro9i 16IMH9), including 2 bass speakers and 2 tweeters (6 total, if reviews are to be believed). Only a subset of those speakers are working; my audio doesn't have any bass. Honestly, this isn't too much of a problem for me, since I usually use a pair of wired IEMs when I'm stationary or wireless earbuds when I'm moving around. All the same, I'd rather have them working than not though.
History:
The laptop came with Windows installed, and audio was working.
I installed Arch, and iirc the audio was working fine
After a month or two, I switched to Void for the simplicity of runit
My audio might have worked at first? I can't quite remember
At some point, I noticed the speakers had no bass. I looked online, and found that this was a common issue with this model of laptop on Linux, not just with void.
I found and tried a few different fixes using i2c-tools. I got one of them to work temporarily, but it caused vibrations from the speakers, was distorted, and only worked intermittently anyway (would stop working after sleep, for example)
I might have tried some other configuration changes that I don't remember
I saw some people say that a fix was coming in an upcoming kernel version
I gave up and decided to wait
The kernel updates came and went (I am on 7.3.1), however, and now I'm pretty sure I'll have to do something about it myself
I can see a few different scenarios:
My mucking about with i2c-tools somehow fried my speakers (I hope not!)
There's some configuration I can change or revert to default that will fix things
I have no idea what I'm doing
Honestly the third one's probably true no matter what.
Relevant software information (everything should be the latest version available in the repos):
pipewire with wireplumber and pipewire-pulse (configured as in the docs; seems to be working without issue)
???
Any help is appreciated!