Fedora 44 - audio volume behaves like an on/off switch (1% volume equals 100% loudness)

Ask Fedora
1

Hello,

I am experiencing an audio issue where adjusting the system volume slider behaves like a binary on/off switch. At 0%, the system is completely muted. The moment the volume slider is moved to 1%, the physical audio output jumps instantly to 100% absolute maximum loudness.

Here is my wpctl status output:

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      50. Radeon High Definition Audio Controller [alsa]
 │      51. Ryzen HD Audio Controller           [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  *   58. Ryzen HD Audio Controller Speaker   [vol: 0.00]
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │      59. Ryzen HD Audio Controller Stereo Microphone [vol: 1.00]
 │  *   60. Ryzen HD Audio Controller Digital Microphone [vol: 1.00]
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:
        94. Brave                                                       
             90. output_FR       > ALC287 Analog:playback_FR	[active]
             95. output_FL       > ALC287 Analog:playback_FL	[active]

Video
[...]

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Devices:

When the system volume is set to 0.002 (by wpctl set-volume @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@ 0.002), I can still clearly hear audio coming out of my laptop speakers. If I increase this value by just 0.01, the volume instantly jumps to 100% full blast.

While this loud audio is playing, I checked alsamixer and it shows that my volume is registering at only 1%, so tweaking things there doesn’t help. The default system volume slider is completely ineffective at changing the actual loudness; my only current workaround to lower the sound is manually turning down the volume inside EasyEffects.

I’ve tried the solution from Volume Control not working (only mute or max volume) after fresh install of Fedora 34 / Gnome 40, but it still does not work.

Thank you in advance for any advice and help!

2

I have the same issue, I can’t use my laptop speakers because there’s no control of the volume, only 100% or nothing, no matter which level of the slider you set.

I also have a Ryzen HD Audio Controller:

Sinks:
│ * 51. Ryzen HD Audio Controller Analog Stereo [vol: 0.00 MUTED]

But I’m in Fedora 43. My kernel is:

7.0.10-101.fc43.x86_64

Any help would be appreciated.

3

Since after so many days you stil have no result I went out looking for help, since I myself have no knowledge of the sound system. I found this website:
Fedora audio troubleshooting guide
My guess woud be to start at step 4, the author says it is Fedora specific. But maybe it is better to just start at the top of the page.
Again, I know nothing about how the sound system works so I can not help you myself. I also don’t know if the page is any good so be careful when using the codes.
Maybe it’s good to create a good backup of your data and your system (I always used Timeshift for that) so you can revert to a working system should something go wrong.

I also found this website where somebody gives tips about how to find out what is wrong with the sound system: 5 critical mistakes everyone makes

I hope I could have helped, success.