Mastodawn

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

I have recently acquired a Corebooted Lenovo ThinkPad T440p from minifree, and it is awesome except for two things:

- Fn in the lower left and Ctrl next to it, instead of Ctrl in the lower left. Oh well.
- No audio over HDMI. This is more than annoying and impedes our ability to enjoy movie night.

I thought it was maybe because I had an Apple miniDP->HDMI cable, so I bought a generic one, but it still doesn't work.

Audio settings recognize that there is an audio device on the HDMI port, but when I try to use it, mpv and vlc both just speed through the video with no audio output and mpv says "Audio underrun detected".

I'm finding surprisingly little about this on the web so far. I would have expected a distinguished old model like this to Just Work and failing that having a very well documented workaround to make it work.

I'm using Debian and KDE. Any ideas?

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 4, 2023

Am I running into this thing?

ticket.coreboot.org/issues/453

"Intel HDMI / DP Audio device not showing up after libgfxinit"

I don't think I am, it sounds like I shouldn't be seeing the device at all in that case.
But still, it does make me think that this could be a coreboot/libreboot issue and that's why nobody is talking about it in forums and Q&A sites.

Bug #453: Intel HDMI / DP Audio device not showing up after libgfxinit - coreboot - Issue Tracker

Redmine

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 22, 2023

I talked to @libreleah on the #minifree IRC and it turns out there isn't actually any HDMI audio through the miniDP++, according to the schematics there is no physical connection. So I can stop looking for a software solution.

But there's a way out! I'll find a dock for it. That will have working audio, I presume through a native HDMI connector.

Thank you Leah for the quick answer!

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 22, 2023

Hmm, actually I did get sound sent under certain circumstances as noted in libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1…

Anyway, there is no known fix to the issue, but there is a known working alternative, so I'll go with that.

Claes Wallin 🇸🇪🇭🇰

I have recently acquired a Corebooted Lenovo ThinkPad T440p from minifree, and it is awesome except for two things: - Fn in the lower left and Ctrl next to ...

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Sep 15, 2023

Looks like I won't have to buy the old chunky style dock. The USB-C docks with USB-A adapter supposedly work with this old thing too.

thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopic.…

T440p | Best portable dockstations - Thinkpads Forum

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Sep 15, 2023

Actually maybe I can get away with buying a random USB-A 3.0 HDMI dock for 70 USD rather than a Lenovo dock for 200 USD?

Jamey Sharp Sep 15, 2023

@clacke I'm a long-time fan of https://plugable.com/ for things like USB docks because of engineering time they've put toward making Linux work well with different things. Of particular interest to me, they sent someone to the annual X.Org Developers Conference years ago to collaborate with us about how multi-seat support should work in Linux overall, rather than just figuring out how to make their hardware go. So if you're looking for a USB dock that's where I'd look

Plugable

An industry leader in USB, USB-C, and Thunderbolt docking stations and peripherals, Plugable can help you connect this with that.

Plugable Technologies

Jason_Dodd Aug 4, 2023

@clacke fn and ctrl can be swapped in the bios.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 4, 2023

@Jason_Dodd Oh sweet, will have a look.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 4, 2023

Ah yes, here we go:

> You can use the nvramtool to modify the Libreboot ROM so you can swap Fn and Ctrl.

> The command should be something like below.

sudo ./nvramtool -C libreboot.rom -w fn_ctrl_swap=Enable

I'll look up some nvramtool docs later to double-check what the actual command is.

Jason_Dodd Aug 4, 2023

@clacke i had the audio issue too but forgot how it solved it.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 4, 2023

@Jason_Dodd With coreboot or BIOS?

Jason_Dodd Aug 4, 2023

@clacke bios. coreboot has only been aspiratoinal for me up until now.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 4, 2023

@Jason_Dodd That gives me hope that it's an easier thing to fix, just a setting or driver somewhere.

Jason_Dodd Aug 4, 2023

@clacke wish i kept notes i could find on my issue and how i solved it but i don't.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 5, 2023

@Jason_Dodd Do you perhaps have some argument that looks something like snd-intel-hdmi=blah in grub.cfg or /erc/modules.d/* that you have forgotten about, but which is helping you to this day?

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 5, 2023

Here's what *didn't* make any difference so far:
- cold reboot while making sure cable is attached
- put `options snd-hda-intel model=generic` in /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf

My problem is not:
- missing audio device

`aplay -l` has a `card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI]` in there

- muted audio

it's not just silent, e.g. mpv also fails to sync A/V, speeds through the video and reports underrun

- kernel driver failure to register audio

`journalctl --system` has a line `ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops`
it does *not* have a line about "couldn't bind", "No i915 binding" or "Cannot probe"

- nvidia

the Integrated Graphics Controller is the only VGA compatible controller here

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 5, 2023

Oh interesting, the browser actually manages to get sound to the TV, but video still gallops on without sync.

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 5, 2023

I will get a miniDP->USB-C cable, to see if it behaves the same with my screen.

Oh wait, actually that screen takes mini-HDMI too, so that's another thing to try.

The reason I'm considering this is that I saw some conversation before on the web that indicated that the state and settings of the screen could affect how the HDMI link acted on the computer.

Jason_Dodd Aug 5, 2023

@clacke sorry, i didn't mention this but i no longer have the laptop. gave it to my step daughter. she paid someone to remove linux and install windows. probably and unlicensed version :(

clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 6, 2023

> paid someone to remove linux and install windows

@Jason_Dodd The mind boggles.

Basil Aug 4, 2023

@clacke ThinkPad keyboards are great except for that damn Fn key

Basil Aug 4, 2023

@clacke I've been very tempted to get one of these but just don't think I could switch back to the lower resolution. Pretty much the only thing stopping me.