Strange noise in headphones when no sound is played

Question

There is a strange noise from my headphones on Lenovo T440. The sound is like when you tune your radio, but you get a wrong frequency and you hear unpleasant noise. The noise starts when Ubuntu 14.04 boots up and ends after a shutdown. It is coming out only through my headphones, there is no noise through the speakers.

The strange thing is that the noise disappears when any sound is played or if I enter sound preferences. But when a sound is stopped, it appears again after 10 seconds or less. Also, the noise goes way down (or maybe even disappears) if I put in my laptop charger and stop the music.

No matter how I change my volume level, the noise level is the same. It seems like the output is not disabled after sound stops.

sudo 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 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC292 Analog [ALC292 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

im on the lenovo t440s and this issue recently occured with my setup on 14.04 as well. as unrelated as it seems, my hunch is that it happened after I altered some /etc/x11/ mouse related settings and then restarted lightdm. was never an issue in the past and now its pervasive. — still_learning, Dec 27 '14 at 18:53
The problem was gone after I changed the `beep` channel in `alsamixer` from `0` to something else and back to `0` — EECOLOR, Nov 02 '15 at 01:01
Possible duplicate of [The bad old Noise issue in the headphones on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS](http://askubuntu.com/questions/860109/the-bad-old-noise-issue-in-the-headphones-on-ubuntu-16-04-lts) — thewebjackal, Feb 05 '17 at 04:36
reversing direction (voting to leave this open) as this post has more answers views and votes — Zanna, Feb 07 '17 at 06:00

le hollandais volant · Answer 1 · 2016-08-25T18:12:12.030

43

Got the same problem on Dell XPS15 (9550, 2015 model in Xenial). Solved it in alsamixer and muting the loopback channel.

$ alsamixer

Navigating to loopback (all the way to the right, with → key) and setting it to Disabled using the ↑ key.

No reboot needed;
No root needed;
Is permanent as far as I noticed.

edited Aug 25 '16 at 18:12

answered Aug 15 '16 at 16:53

le hollandais volant

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This solution worked on my Dell Precision 5510. – dmiller309 Aug 17 '16 at 18:49
This worked on my Dell Precision 5510 as well. Thank you! – L42 Aug 25 '16 at 08:56
This works perfectly on Dell – Maduka Jayalath Sep 05 '16 at 10:24
Works on Lenovo y700. I had issue with the noise issue with the speakers not head phone. The audio_power save method does not work in my case – MLE Sep 21 '16 at 19:41
1

With this method, you can also keep the powersave on, and thus save battery. – Jonas Czech Sep 26 '16 at 10:09
Worked very well on my HP ZBook 15 G2 – Al_th Nov 23 '16 at 10:36
4

My looback is already set as Disabled by default ): – Gabriel Ziegler Sep 27 '18 at 20:06
This also worked for my Thinkpad X1 Carbon (3rd gen)! – madmaze Mar 02 '19 at 18:50
Finally! this worked on HP Spectre x360, and ubuntu 18.04, however the option that I disabled was called 'Auto-Mute'. – Doried Abd-Allah Jul 06 '19 at 17:01
4

I changed 'Headphone Mic Boost' to 10 (one up) and somehow solved. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/7pjdnf/xps_13_9360_ubuntu_hissing_sound/) I also found someone suggesting it. (Dell XPS 13 9360) – Jo' Oct 06 '19 at 09:21
There is no "Loopback" option on mine. Dell XPS 7390 w/ 20.04. The Headphone Mic Boost option also did nothing. Disabling Powersave (described by kvcx) worked, but would love to find a better option if this hurts battery life. – Brian C Jan 27 '21 at 04:03
1

I cannot find the `loopback` option. Which "Sound Card" should I select? – desmond13 Nov 19 '21 at 08:08
My loopback was set to disabled but turning it on and off and just randomly playing with the other settings and then closing alsamixer and then again running alsamixer and then disabling loopback again and pressing the enter key, worked @.@ but then after a while the pitched noise came back again... – Abdulla Masud Oct 18 '22 at 21:29
did fix my ubuntu 22. – Vadim Mar 18 '23 at 14:50

score 41 · Answer 2 · edited May 21 '15 at 00:57

41

It's possibly your audio interface going into power save.

If following commands clear the issue until you reboot or change the power supply it has got something to do with power save:

echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

edited May 21 '15 at 00:57

mchid

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answered Oct 09 '14 at 13:02

kvbx

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Thanks! This one works on other distros ;-) I ended up having something like "options snd_hda_intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=0" in my modprobe.conf... – Lester Cheung Aug 18 '16 at 06:46
1

Worked perfectly for me, Xenial on Dell Inspiron 14 7000 – Ren Jun 06 '17 at 00:27
Continues to work with 18.04 LTS (bionic). – Kyle Barbour Aug 23 '18 at 05:27
worked for me on Fedora 28 on a Dell Precision 5520 – John Cramerus Aug 23 '19 at 00:53
worked for me, kubuntu – Jose Angel Sanchez Jun 08 '20 at 00:09
4

It still works on Ubuntu 20.04. Thank you. – Edip Ahmet Aug 28 '20 at 07:18
It worked for me on Kubuntu 20.10 ... how can I make this permanent? – robertspierre Dec 06 '20 at 16:09
Same here on Kubuntu 20.10 dell inspiron 7537! Dude, you made my day. – JuanDeLosMuertos Dec 23 '20 at 08:52
it worker for me on kali linux 2021.1 – code by Abhishek Bharti Apr 10 '21 at 07:29
3

but the issue is that when i restart the computer the problem again come and i have to again write the code – code by Abhishek Bharti Apr 10 '21 at 07:40
this also works in ubuntu 22.04 with kernel 5.17 – KuhakuPixel Dec 01 '22 at 08:59
Worked for me using Ubuntu 22.04 with Dell Precision M4800. Thank you. – user.dz Dec 16 '22 at 16:56

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 26 '15 at 02:17

16

I had the same problem on Dell Inspiron 3542 running Ubuntu 14.04.2

The problems appears to be in the audio powersave feature.

The noise stops when I open the sound settings, or when I play audio/video. The noise starts again when I stop playing audio/video and close sound settings.

This solution worked for me: Edit the file

$ sudo nano /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/intel-audio-powersave

change the line

INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE=${INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE:-true}

to

INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE=false

Reboot.

I faced no further noise after this.

answered Apr 26 '15 at 02:17

mmindia

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Worked perfectly for me, Xenial on Dell XPS 13 9350 – Robin Winslow May 17 '16 at 23:34
2

any ideas why power save is causing these strange noises? Isn't power save a good thing. I'm just curious! – Surya Teja Karra Jul 30 '16 at 13:49
sudo aplay -l gives me a similar output. I am using Dell Inspiron 15 3542. I don't have "intel-audio-powersave" file. Can I create one? – thewebjackal Jan 25 '17 at 02:22
Possibly you need to select correct sound card by using F6 first – Alex0007 Jun 05 '17 at 17:42
You are soooo awesome!!! Worked on my Macbook 2006 Late running only Ubuntu 16.04 LTS :) – yanike Nov 14 '17 at 05:38
I don't have such a file either on my Kubuntu 20.10. Can I create it? @Alex0007 what do you mean I have to select the correct card first? In which application I have to press F6? – robertspierre Dec 06 '20 at 16:12

Dean · Answer 4 · 2014-10-09T13:06:08.763

6

I had the same issue. I believe it is the noise that your microphone picks up.

Go into Sound Settings, under the Input tab, check Mute box near Settings for <microphone_name> Microphone (Not the Mute checkbox at the top).

enter image description here

That should do the trick.

edited Oct 09 '14 at 13:06

answered Oct 09 '14 at 12:50

Dean

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Following your instruction, my headphone is mute. – Tianren Liu Feb 27 '15 at 02:17
For me on a Dell M3800, that had no effect. – Garrett Mar 03 '15 at 03:25
the microphone does not typically play over the speakers unless you run `pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1` – mchid May 21 '15 at 00:55
This worked for me. Muting the microphone removed all the noise. Thank you. – Hussein El Motayam Dec 23 '15 at 20:54
This worked. Can someone explain why this works?? – PG1 Jun 25 '16 at 18:32

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 09 '17 at 23:17

6

I had the exact the same problem and none of above method worked for me.

My laptop is ASUS ROG-G501JW and the sound card is Realtek.

I found the solution in this thread: White and hissing noise in headphones, not present in Windows.

Setting this line in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf fixed all of my problems:

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

edited Jan 09 '17 at 23:17

pa4080

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answered Jan 09 '17 at 21:19

HatsOn

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Confirmed on ASUS ROG-G501VW – rob Apr 02 '20 at 08:58
This didn´t work for me with Dell M4800 Ubuntu 22.04. – user.dz Oct 24 '22 at 16:12

score 3 · Answer 6 · edited May 09 '14 at 02:49

3

Do you have tlp activated?

If so edit /etc/default/tlp and set the power save option values to 0

SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_AC=0
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_BAT=0

this did the trick for me

edited May 09 '14 at 02:49

Seth

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answered May 09 '14 at 02:48

Foxtur

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On my Dell M3800, I tried setting `SOUND_POWER_SAVE=0`, but it didn't help... – Garrett Mar 03 '15 at 03:25
For me, setting these values to 1 helped. – Muntashir Akon Feb 08 '20 at 15:35
Thanks. I had a similar problem on 19.10, and this is what fixed it for me. In my case, the hum was present when I plugged my stereo deck into the laptop, but *not* when I plugged in headphones. – Mike Baranczak May 31 '20 at 20:59

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 13 '22 at 11:25

2

In /etc/pulse/default.pa and /etc/pulse/system.pa, comment the following line:

load-module module-suspend-on-idle

Or try to create the file ~/.config/pulse/default.pa with the lines:

.include /etc/pulse/default.pa
.nofail
unload-module module-suspend-on-idle
.fail

Sources: Static noise when NO audio playing, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Pops_when_starting_and_stopping_playback

answered May 13 '22 at 11:25

Aurélien

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Worked for me using Ubuntu 22.04 with Dell Precision M4800. Thank you. – user.dz Oct 24 '22 at 19:35

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 27 '18 at 20:12

1

I just found this thread because I had the fuzzy earphones as well, but because of a different reason.

I have a USB fan plugged into my laptop and whilst it's turned on, I hear the fuzz on my earphones, so check if there are any devices on your USB ports causing the interference on your sound before testing the software fixes.

answered Sep 27 '18 at 20:12

Gabriel Ziegler

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Why, why does this happen? As I read your answer, I noticed I didn't have my mouse plugged in before when I was listening to music and I did now. Disconnected it, and it works! – RedClover Feb 04 '20 at 21:05

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 12 '19 at 16:50

1

I had the same problem on my Kubuntu 18.04 and I solved by following this answer, changing "Front Mic Boost" value from "dB gain 0,00, 0,00" to "dB gain 10,00, 10,00"

answered Oct 12 '19 at 16:50

Lorenzo Cecchi

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10

Worked for me using Ubuntu 22.04 with Dell Precision M4800. Thank you. – user.dz Oct 25 '22 at 21:04

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 10 '19 at 16:22

0

I had dell too, the same problem. No one cli-command no help me(.
I try tuning alsamixer. option Headphone M see screenshot

$ > alsamixer

answered Dec 10 '19 at 16:22

madjardi

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Shiplu Mokaddim · Answer 11 · 2020-12-03T11:03:06.370

Solution

If this is due to the persistent battery mode of TLP then the solution is easy.

First, check if this is the case. Run sudo tlp-stat -s, if this shows Mode = battery (persistent), then that's the cause of it.

The Fix is simple. Infact it was pointed out by @Foxtour in one of the answers.

Create a new file /etc/tlp.d/95-YOUR-NAME.conf and add the following content
```
TLP_DEFAULT_MODE=AC
TLP_PERSISTENT_DEFAULT=0
```
Restart tlp
```
sudo service tlp restart
```

Background

I am using ubuntu 20.04. I have never configured TLP and the Dell laptop has a freshly installed Ubuntu. This happened due to these 2 config options added in /etc/tlp.d/50-estar-default.conf.

TLP_DEFAULT_MODE=BAT
TLP_PERSISTENT_DEFAULT=1

This means, the default mode is battery and this will be persistent all that time. It doesn't change even if you are on AC.

This configuration option was added by package oem-fix-misc-cnl-tlp-estar-conf. The apt-cache show oem-fix-misc-cnl-tlp-estar-conf shows this description

Description: customized configuration for tlp.
 This package carrys agressive policy to pass energy-star, and also some blacklist for problematic devices.

Now you know why this happened

score 0 · Answer 12 · edited May 10 '21 at 08:58

0

I don't know if you still have this problem, but for me the solution was to lower the volume of the headset from the physical buttons on it.

If your headset has physical volume down buttons, turn the volume down using them. I guess the volume was so high it was transmitting the Bluetooth signals into noise.

edited May 10 '21 at 08:58

BeastOfCaerbannog

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answered May 10 '21 at 05:18

IKONIK

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 27 '21 at 11:09

0

For Asus G551VW the above steps did not work for me. In this article you will find correct steps to install alsa & give it correct model name to use while communicating with the sound chip. For G551VW it was alc668-headset.

answered Jul 27 '21 at 11:09

MohamedA95

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Ali Kehel · Answer 14 · 2023-04-16T18:34:04.973

0

A possible solution for any fedora users out there is to change the values in the following files:

/sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller

You can use nano to open these files and replace 1 with 0 and Y with N, respectively.

Worked on my Dell M2800 Laptop.

edited Apr 16 '23 at 18:34

answered Apr 16 '23 at 18:31

Ali Kehel

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1

Since this is a Ubuntu only site how does this answer for a non Ubuntu OS apply? – David Apr 17 '23 at 07:32

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Nov 06 '16 at 13:12

0

I've had this problem on Dell 3542 with Ubuntu 16.04 GNOME and it started happening after I installed TLP for power saving. So after I saw here that the problem is related to power saving I simply uninstalled TLP and the problem was gone.

answered Nov 06 '16 at 13:12

Mita_

111
4

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Jan 23 '17 at 08:08

I had this problem on Asus X200ca with ElementaryOS Loki (Ubuntu 16.04) and other linux distro that I had used. I fixed issue with

run alsamixer (not in sudo mode)
Navigate to Auto-mute Mode (using right arrow)
Change it to enable (using up arrow)

Now I don't have the problem again.

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Nov 18 '17 at 21:36

I found an unusual cause for my excessive background noise... my Civilization 5 (run via Steam) was not exiting properly. The background noise I was hearing was from the game. I used "htop" to find and kill all Civilization processes and sure enough, the noise decreased every time I killed off a process from the game.

So not an Ubuntu nor audio problem; it was in fact one particular app (that never exits right anyway).

Strange noise in headphones when no sound is played

17 Answers17

Solution

Background

Linked