headphone jack lost in hardware misconfiguration

Following an accidental reconfiguration, my computer has
lost the ability to send output to the headphone jack or
the audio outlet on my HDMI-connected screen.

After the problem developed I spent nearly a day looking
for remedies through search engines. When they proved to
be futile, I tried a sure-fire solution. I installed a
fresh copy of Debian-12.6 in a spare formatted partition,
to clear all software settings and start anew. The result
was the same behavior, no audio. This proves the problem
is not a software setting in the operating system, but a
semi-permanent setting in some hardware device.

The crippled behavior appears in the Pulse Audio Volume
Control. Under the Configuration tab there is no display
for Analog Stereo Duplex, and consequently no ability to
select Headphones under Output Devices. It is only
possible to get the tinny sound from the built-in speaker
in the laptop, Lenovo ideapad 330-15IKB.

The command sudo alsa-info gives 900 lines of output, the
most suspicious area in under APLAY:

> APLAY
>
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [ASUS VP228]
> Subdevices: 0/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

A working (Framework) computer shows:

> APLAY
>
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: 92HD95 Analog [92HD95 Analog]
> Subdevices: 0/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [LG FHD]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Since a computer without sound is nearly useless, my
alternatives are fix the hardware or throw it away.
Advice on the internet all deals with software
configuration. Is there a book or text that explains
audio hardware, and how to configure it? Most requests
for help on the internet begin with the phrase "I am just
a newbie", but that does not apply here. I have spent a
career programming computers, and can cope with real
technical specifications.

It might help to know what the accident was. I connected
two different speakers (A and B) to my stereo, fed from
the computer headphone jack. A misconnection of cables
caused raw sound from another device to be sent back to
the stereo through the speaker B audio cable. The
computer put up some prompt like: what did you plug in?
Since I do everything through the headphone jack, I
thoughtlessly clicked on headphones. It has not worked
since.

Statistics: Posted by RTMQ — 2024-08-05 03:27 — Replies 0 — Views 54

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