I have Searched the forum for my issue and found nothing related or helpful
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I have read the the Release Notes
OpenMandriva Lx version:
Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…):
Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant):
Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):
This is my first time posting here as a new OpenMandriva user. I apologize in advance if I ended up misreading one of the rules.
My question is about downloading/updating drivers. Specifically, those for sound. Here and there, when playing a visual novel on Steam, I will hear a crackling noise not native to the game. I even tried using headphones and the crackling came up once. Its rather infrequent, but still worries me about it developing further.
As such, I’d like help downloading and updating the driver for my Acer laptop, specs listed at the bottom of this message. The Acer website only provides drivers for windows, and I’m unsure about how to properly use Wine.
I’m a Linux novice. Any and all help would be appreciated.
Dealing with sound drivers is a ROYAL PAIN IN THE %#$#
Makes Nvidia look like a linux saint. Most manufacturers can’t be bothered to develop drivers at all, and there is so much turnover in the chip inventory that 2 versions of the same motherboard can have 2 different chips.
What that means is you need the info on the specific sound chip on your system
I tried using the Hardware Database link. My end result is at this link, but I don’t know how to make heads or tails of it. Because I’m rather new to Linux and just want to operate free of Windows, whether something is “detected” or "works, or what I’m supposed to interpret from the terminal-style representation of each log, I’m not sure where to go. Your help is appreciated.
(Add “?probe=e9b2216155” to a linux-hardware dot org link to see in further detail.)
This is my sound card:
Codec: ATI R6xx HDMI
Codec: Realtek ALC256
According to AI-generated search, the driver responsible is " sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c". Regular results appear to be general definitions from 2019.
If any of this can help you guide me even further, I’d appreciate that.
In the meantime, you can use the sound panel in system settings to swap sound cards from the realtec to the amd (assuming your monitor has a headphone or other audio jack)
If you can swap them, make the hdmi the default and see if the problem is still there
Also, does that noise happen with music and video? Or only in games? Or only in Steam games (vs GOG vs other games installed from the repo)?
Finally, what version of OpenMandriva are you on? and what Desktop Environment?
In my experience, it has only happened with two Steam games, and they were pretty low maintenance games (Think like a visual novel or Fire Emblem game for the GBA). I seemed to get a similar result when I tried plugging in headphones, though once again, this is an occasional pop-up sound, not a consistent problem.
I haven’t heard it happen yet with my laptop plugged into my hdmi tv monitor, but short of having sound play a lot, it would be hard to recreate this situation.
If it has only been happening with those 2 games (and not others), sounds to me like whatever libraries they are using are at issue, not the drivers
From the driver standpoint:
Make sure your bios is up to date
Since you’re on Rome you have a more current kernel than most distros (the kernel is where the driver is). Cooker might have an even newer one I don’t remember. It will eventually…
I would also mention the sound issue on Steam for those games and see what comes up.
If there’s a support forum for the Motherboard mfg. I would check/post there too.
Finally I might try a different distro like bazzite. They play around with some strange audio driver blobs in their kernel.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything around the web to narrow this down
Once again, thank you. I’ll keep experimenting, and whatever happens happens. Maybe I’ll take it as a sign to just learn more about system management so I can investigate future problems myself. Far future though.