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[David Chatterton <dmchatterton@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The sound system has now taken on a new personality of its own.

The internal speakers appear in the "Play sound through" list of Output
pane of System Settings > Sound along with Headphones, built-in audio
(even though there are no headphones connected. The Test Sound button
works on both these items but produces the same test through the
internal speakers.

The Rhythm Box Music player produces sound out of the built-in speakers
as expected. Connection of a set of Bluetooth Headphones results in them
being listed in the Play sound through list. The Test Sound button works
through these headphones as does the output of the Rhythm Box Music
Player.

If a pair of wired headphones are plugged into the headphone socket,
they are not deteted and the Test Sound button sends its test signal via
the internal speakers. However, if the Bluetooth headphones are selected
in the Play sound through list, the Test Sound button tests are directed
through the Bluetooth headphones as one might expect.

I am inclined to think that the original HDMI output was a red herring.
I have, in the past, got sound to play through the speakers built-in to
an HDMI monitor by connecting the monitor through the video output using
an HDMI adapter. It seems that the sound output system is not very good
at detecting which output devices are connected at any one time. This
might be due to shortcomings in the kernel or for other reasons. Who
knows?

One thing that I can be sure of is that, after restarting the laptop,
the sound system might well be in a new state and not necessarily in the
one that it was in before restarting. There does not appear to be any
consistent behaviour as yet.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to alsa-driver in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1402194

Title:
  PCI/internal sound card not detected

Status in alsa-driver package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  This bug relates to the internal sound hardware in a Dell XPS 13
  laptop. Since accepting an upgrade to the latest Ubuntu Extra software
  today, the Systems Settings > Sound > Output no longer show the
  internal speakers, despite numerous attempts to shut down and restart.

  Before accepting the upgrade, the sound played normally through the
  speakers.

  Having upgraded the system from the Ubuntu 12.10 originally installed
  with the laptop and finding comments relating to the software drivers
  for the Intel WiFi and Bluetooth chip (Intel AC 7520) and touch
  screen, I tried out an installation straight from a Ubuntu 14.04
  bootable USB stick. The system worked well enough without these
  drivers so I went ahead and replaced the whole installation from the
  USB stick and subsequently accepted the upgrade to 14.10.

  I tried plugging in a headset and this produced a screen allowing me
  to select the type of headset (mono, with or without mic or stereo).
  An extra entry appeared in the System Settings > Sound > Output pane
  allowing me to choose between the headset or the speakers and to test
  the audio on each one. However, unplugging the headset seemed to
  produce intermittent behaviour, the system being uncertain as to
  whether the headset was in use. This was solved by re-booting and the
  system and speakers behaved as expected.

  Now I have the situation that the speakers are not shown in the Sound
  > Output pane and the Output Volume slider stays at zero and is unable
  to be moved with the pointer. The volume control slider in the
  dropdown panel from the speaker symbol in the system tray appears to
  respond to movement from the pointer and the Fn-F11 & F12 keys.
  However, with no output device shown, there is no sound output to the
  speakers.

  Several attempts to restart the system have failed to restore the
  speaker functionality.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
  Package: alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-28.38-generic 3.16.7-ckt1
  Uname: Linux 3.16.0-28-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8
  Architecture: amd64
  AudioDevicesInUse:
   USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
   /dev/snd/controlC0:  david      2172 F.... pulseaudio
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Sat Dec 13 13:28:32 2014
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-12-11 (1 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.2)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: alsa-driver
  Symptom: audio
  Title: PCI/internal sound card not detected
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2014-12-11 (1 days ago)
  dmi.bios.date: 09/11/2014
  dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: A05
  dmi.board.name: 0D13CR
  dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.board.version: A00
  dmi.chassis.type: 8
  dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.chassis.version: 0.1
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA05:bd09/11/2014:svnDellInc.:pnXPS139333:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0D13CR:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr0.1:
  dmi.product.name: XPS13 9333
  dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

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