Built-in (Intel) audio not working next to nVidia (HDMI) audio that does work

Ask Fedora
1

Today, I ask for help getting the built-in audio to work on my HP ZBook 17 G6 with nVIDIA T1000 gfx/audio sub-system. The built-in audio system was tested and found functional using the BIOS/UEFI (01.31.00) sub-system test. The system is up-to-date on the latest Fedora-41 updates (kernel-6.13.7-200.fc41.x86_64). The HDMI audio output is fully functional. pavucontrol only shows the “HDA NVidia” device. To make sure there wasn’t some left-over wireplumber configuration, I ran Fedora-41-xfce-Live from USB drive, which also did not “find” the built-in audio.
Some pertinent system information:

$ lspci -k
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 860c
        Kernel driver in use: sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs, snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 10fa (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 860e
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

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

$ paclt list cards
Card #47
        Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1
        Driver: alsa
        Owner Module: n/a
        Properties:
                api.acp.auto-port = "false"
                api.acp.auto-profile = "false"
                api.alsa.card = "0"
                api.alsa.card.longname = "HDA NVidia at 0xe9000000 irq 17"
                api.alsa.card.name = "HDA NVidia"
                api.alsa.path = "hw:0"
                api.alsa.split-enable = "true"
                api.alsa.use-acp = "true"
                api.dbus.ReserveDevice1 = "Audio0"
                api.dbus.ReserveDevice1.Priority = "-20"
                device.api = "alsa"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:01:00.1"
                device.description = "HDA NVidia"
                device.enum.api = "udev"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-analog-pci"
                device.name = "alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1"
                device.nick = "HDA NVidia"
                device.plugged.usec = "17353227"
                device.product.id = "0x10fa"
                device.subsystem = "sound"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card0"
(truncated; no further cards listed)

I have had the HDMI plugged into a tv to confirm that the HDMI audio is functional. Plugging that in and taking it out again, did not add devices to the pavucontrol (as apparently it did for some others).
Your suggestions towards getting the built-in audio to work will be highly appreciated.

2

Well, I found the solution in the ArchLinux forum.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=275737

The trick was to add this option to the kernel options in /etc/default/grub

snd-intel-dspcfg.dsp_driver=1

followed by grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg of course.
That displaces the snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl driver in favor of snd_hda_intel driver, so that

$ lspci -k
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 860c
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs, snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC285 Analog [ALC285 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

after that it was just a matter of selecting the built-in audio, using pavucontrol.

For good measure I also kept the (previously tried, but failed) options
rd.driver.blacklist=sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl modprobe.blacklist=sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl
as well as /etc/modprobe.d/audio.conf with blacklist sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl
I’ll try and peel that back now to see if it still functions, without them.
Yes, it does.