USB Audio - Sound Pop on startup

Ask Fedora
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1

Hello everyone,

Good evening.

I spent a lot of time today to troubleshoot my problem, without success.
My speakers are connected via USB2.0 to my PC. When I click on ENTER in grub to start fedora, shortly afterwards a loud crack / pop comes from my speakers.

This is much quieter when I start my windows.

But I am not even sure if its really fedora or still something the grub bootloader does, due to the short time frame between fedora beeing selected in grub bootmanager and the noise. I would love to attach a short video of this, but I am insecure how I do at best. I dont want to break with forum guidelines.

I am not new to linux, but new to Fedora. I use it since yesterday, so the problem always have been.

What I already tried:

  • Set kernel module options to snd_hda_intel like power_safe=0
  • Booted mint 21 (kernel 5.15) and ubuntu 25.04 (kernel 6.14) → same problem
  • Attached my speakers to another USB ports. USB 2.0, USB3.0, USB3.2 → same problem
  • Switched back to pulseaudio → same problem
  • Updated my BIOS.
  • Checked my UEFI for settings that might be related to usb power management. But did not find really anything.

Yep I am a bit desperate. Therefore I am happy for any hint I could get. Thank you in advance!

System Info:

$ cat /etc/os-release 
NAME="Fedora Linux"
VERSION="42 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition)"
RELEASE_TYPE=stable

$ uname -r
6.15.3-200.fc42.x86_64

$ yum list --installed | grep -i grub
grub2-common.noarch                                  1:2.12-32.fc42                      updates
2

Does it also occur on windows but it’s not as loud?

If you set the power mode to performance does it do the same thing?

Thanks

1 Like
3

Someone posted an interesting workaround for that sort of problem here:

I’m not sure it is the same problem you are hitting, but it might be worth a try (leaving the speakers in a muted state on shutdown).

See also: Audio Pops and Clicks — The Linux Kernel documentation

1 Like
4

Thank you for your answer :slight_smile:

Yes exactly. Same noise when starting windows, but less loud.

I am desktop user. I know about power management modes for laptops, but I am not sure what you could mean else.

5

Hey,

thanks for all that summarized information. Tried that out, sadly without success.

Maybe as additional information. The mentioned sound already happens at this screen:

image0
image01512×2016 484 KB

So quite before this screen:

image1
image11512×2016 519 KB

I dont know if linux settings can even have an effect on whats happening here. Maybe something grub does?

6

There are some settings that could affect what is happening that early. Specifically, the module parameters being passed to snd_hda_intel (assuming that is your sound driver). Some of them can reduce “speaker noise”.

You’ll need more details about the model of your sound card to know which parameters might be applicable.

P.S. I notice you wrote in your initial post power_safe=0, but the parameter should be power_save=0.

See also: More Notes on HD-Audio Driver — The Linux Kernel documentation

7

Hey,

thank you again for your reply! :slight_smile:

Unfortunately my sound driver is snd_usb_audio.
I blacklisted snd_hda_intel → no difference
I blacklisted snd_usb_audio → audio is gone

I found that documentation and did some try&error by setting some boolean values to the non-default value. Like autoclock → no

But unfortunately, problem persisted😅. Argh.

Thank you again for the help. If you have still another idea, I would be glad and open. If not, also okay! :slight_smile:

8

There is some documentation for that driver here: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - Driver Configuration guide — The Linux Kernel documentation

I don’t see any relevant options though. Sorry.

1 Like
9

Hello,

I “solved” it by switching from USB DAC to onboard DAC. So my speakers are connected via jack cable instead of USB.

A bit silly since my speakers USB DAC was adveristed and promised to be outstanding. But from my sound tests so far I dont hear a difference.
And I need to put my hands on my cable management, again… (yeah).

10

Glad you found a workaround.

FYI, looking back at my previous post just now, I noticed that I had shared a link to an outdated version of the documentation. I’ve just now updated the link to the newer documentation. The newer documentation contains some additional “quirk_flags” information, however, I’m still not sure that any of them would be of any help.

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11

Interesting.

And if for example I would like to set the ‘bit 16’. How would I actual do this? Would u know?

12

The formula to convert that to a decimal number is d=2^n where d is the decimal number you need to assign to quirk_flags and n is the bit offset that you want to set. So it would be 2^16 = 65536. You can set multiple bits by summing the numbers.

If you would like to see it more visually, GNOME’s calculator (among others) has a programming mode.

image
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I think all those module parameters will also take a hexadecimal number written with a 0x prefix if you prefer to work in hex (e.g. 0x10000).

1 Like