Spoke to the hardware team, this is a known issue with the Tempo codec described here. It’s been something we have been working to solve and found the best approach is to use the new audio expansion card instead.
While it can be minimized to a degree, it’s not really a great experience and we are recommending the expansion card for those needing crystal clear audio (which I get and it does sound great). Not an ideal solution out of the box, but it’s what we have to offer with the Tempo codec being the contributing force here.
Wow has the time flown by! I just wanted to chime in and say that, since posting, I changed OS to Manjaro and started using Pipewire. I haven’t had the static issue with the headphone jack in a long time. This is confusing as the best explanation here seems to be hardware related. I don’t know if the changes I made to my OS made a difference or not but wanted to post here in case it was useful to anyone else.
If this consistently appears to be resolved, there may have been an issue with the release of Pipewire in Pop and Manjaro may have had a patch or newer release, difficult to say without comparing it against Fedora for example.
I too am having audio issues. I hear a pop when I plug in my headphones, and when audio stops playing I also hear a pop. While audio plays, there is a consistent static sound that I can hear through my headphones.
I’m on Linux with pipewire/wireplumber, and the issue occurs regardless of if I am connected to AC or not, or if I have anything (besides headphones) plugged in.
I’ve been dealing with this problem for over a year now, so any kind of fix would be amazing.
I tried some of the earlier suggestions in this thread such as the lua script for wireplumber, local config in /etc/modprobe.d, etc. but nothing seems to have worked so far.
Just a heads up folks, Tempo DAC, which is the only DAC ever used on Intel Core 12th Gen and later. This can create some odd behavior with noise, clicking, etc. The why it happened this was can be found here in this article: Framework | Solving for Silicon Shortages
Two best options for those on Intel Core 12th Gen and later are:
Just confirmed, 11th Gen manufactured after August 2021 to 13th Gen all used Tempo.
If you want to use the audio jack over USB or Bluetooth/wireless, the the audio expansion card would be the best bet.
Now, it is likely possible to try and fight with it by tweaking allowed rates, default rate, etc. But I’d need more information on which distro and release.
On Fedora for example, we could try disabling power saving. Will it help? Probably not, but it’s worth a try. Just changes a 1 to a 0.
sudo echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
If this worked, you can make this survive reboot:
echo "options snd_hda_intel power_save=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/snd_hda_intel.conf
That would be nice seeing as I don’t actually have wireless/bluetooth/USB headphones, only the 3.5 mm ones for my phone.
I also can’t get a audio expansion card unless I buy a laptop is what the site tells me. Show me how to put a second battery in the back and I’ll get one with a Framework 16
I did try writing 0 to the power_save file, but alas, no effect. (Also that first sudo is redundant :P)
Well I’m on Arch, just the latest stuff of everything as is the Arch way I suppose. uname -r gives me 6.5.9-arch2-1.
@Matt_Hartley does this issue exist when upgrading to the AMD board?
I upgraded mine, and had the same issues that I was having with my Gen 11 still persist, i.e. headphone jack almost not usable because of static. (using Fedora 39) … I switched back to the Gen 11 board because I had all kinds of weird display issues that some others have experienced, but will test again if and when I swap back.
@Matt_Hartley I tested Ubuntu 22.04.3, Fedora 38, NixOS 23.05 on my gen 12 Framework.
Got the same headphone jack intermittent noise on all 3 distros, making the audio jack unusable.
Can the audio expansion card solve this problem ?
Thank you !
Do you think replacing the audio board would resolve the audio issue or it is unrelated ?
I am planning to buy the audio expansion card but since it takes one expansion slot, i would prefer to replace
the audio board instead Framework | Audio Board Kit
Is it possible to fix this on a later mainboard revision?
I’m hard pressed to find a laptop with worse noise isolation (even my X200 has a better built in jack!)
I’m completely fine with using a dongle, but it would definitely be a nice sell if a future mainboard had better signalling for audio.
Sure, they’ve already replaced the audio chip once (and back), however the signal on the mainboard is likely always noisier than a separate assembly outside of the main computer, as there are a lot of different signals on the mainboard, which can disturb an audio signal or add noise. You can obviously add shields or route the audio signals only close to the edge (as my computer mainboard does), but there are obviously space constraints inside laptops.
Chiming in here after spending a few hours trying to diagnose these problems on my Framework 13 (11th gen, Batch 8) runing mostly Ubuntu (23.10 at the moment) and W11.
As I spent some time running tests and reading some topics, I would like to summarize what I’ve learn about the current state of the 3 different problems discussed here:
The static hiss in the background, that some people are hearing and others are not. Which is present while playing anything and can stop (or not depending on power saving settings) a few seconds after you stop playing anything: I confirmed this one in all my OS (Ubuntu 23.10, 22.04 and W11) while running on battery as well as plugged-in. As many people already said it’s present on almost every hardware version and is impossible to resolve, it’s simply the DAC hardware quality and/or electronic filtering / isolation which is lacking I suppose. It’ll be much easier to hear with more sensitve / low impedence hearphones like my Sennheiser IE 300, but is very quiet with higher impedence headphones like my Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro. So it’s not necessarily about higher/lower quality but if you have the choice, you can use a higher impedence headset to mitigate this.
The beeping sound we hear when we start playing something and a couple seconds after the audio is finished, which has been diagnosed as being the noise made by the chip when coming in/out of power saving mode. Pretty annoying especially as the volume is fixed so with sensitive headphones it’s very loud. This one is apparently only possible to avoid by disabling power saving with [RESPONDED] Headphone jack intermittent noise? - #103 by Yibo_Wei or [RESPONDED] Headphone jack intermittent noise? - #154 by Matt_Hartley for example. I was able to test and confirm this “fix” works but haven’t measured how much power is lost by doing so (somebody said ~0.2w so not much). Also if we do this the static hiss is present all the time so not necessarily better if you keep you earphones. Matter of preferrence I suppose, so far I choose not to disable this.
Finally the other problem I’ve had which only started recently and is much more annoying is a weird crackling sound which occurs randomly a few times per second during playback of any audio. This one was not present before, is not reproducible in Ubuntu 22.04 live USB or W11. I can only get it in Ubuntu 23.10 which makes me think it’s likely related to some bug or bad default config in recent versions of pipewire and stuff. But on the other end there’s some weird findings which doesn’t look “software”. As I was not always able to reproduce (or sometimes the problem was much less audible, like just a crack every few seconds) I made a lot tests and found that this was related to CPU load. The lowest the CPU load, the more crackling I would hear, and as soon as the CPU was used the problem would go away. Exactly as in [RESPONDED] Headphone jack intermittent noise? - #54 by Andrew_Marshall. I also noticed this problem is only present on battery and not when plugged-in (so nothing to do with external interferences). @Andrew_Marshall seem to have found a link with power states but I don’t have the same tlp commands on Ubuntu so I can’t reproduce. Just changing from power saving to performance mode on Ubuntu 23.10 does not change anything in my case. I guess I’ll have to try [RESPONDED] Headphone jack intermittent noise? - #117 by foura or [RESPONDED] Headphone jack intermittent noise? - #55 by Andrew_Marshall (haven’t had the motivation yet)
I’m quite surprised and sad to learn though that although problems 1 and 2 are known, there have not been improvement in future revisions of the motherboard Sure the higher quality audio extension is an option but it also takes up one precious slot, it also costs extra, and there’s already one 3.5mm jack so it would be better if it worked “well” out of the box (including for sensitive headsets). And I’m not expecting audiophile grade quality here, just something at least as good as other laptops / desktop / phones.
Maybe the internal audio board can actually be the same components than in the audio expansion card and interface with the Motherboard using some internal USB ? (re-use existing design, no need for the exansion card in newer models, swappable, etc…)
In my case after spending a lot of time on this already (like I did for other framework issues…) and as #1 is impossible to fix, #2 only with side effects and #3 seems tricky, I’ve decided to give up and use one of my old small (but good quality) USB-C to Jack audio interface that will at least:
leave me with the USB-C port free when I’m not using it.
not cost me an additional audio expansion card
Though having to rely on more and more workarounds to be able to enjoy my Framework doesn’t make me want to recommend it in it’s current state , especially to less tech-savvy people (and I really would love to be able to recommend it because I love the concept)
Sure the higher quality audio extension is an option but it also takes up one precious slot, it also costs extra, and there’s already one 3.5mm jack so it would be better if it worked “well” out of the box (including for sensitive headsets). And I’m not expecting audiophile grade quality here, just something at least as good as other laptops / desktop / phones.