Audio bursts at beginning of videos & self adjusting sound

[Maiq_The_Liar]

I installed Fedora 42 on my ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 laptop.

Everything works fine except the audio. There are two main issues:

1. Initial loud burst / buzzing:
   Whenever I start a YouTube video (or other audio source), the sound is extremely loud for about two seconds. It’s so loud that it actually buzzes/distorts. After that, the system automatically reduces the volume to a normal level.
2. Automatic volume scaling (volume limiter):
   If I set the audio to a comfortable level and then try to increase the volume, the system immediately scales it back down, almost as if there’s a built-in threshold or limiter that can’t be exceeded. This makes the maximum usable volume too quiet for my taste.
   Even after watching a video on a normal volume setting, that is not to loud so it can create that buzzing sound and without manually changing the volume, the sound changes after about 10 seconds. It changes from crisp / clear to muffled /dampened.

I already tried tweaking settings in pavucontrol (Volume Control), but nothing changed.

Has anyone experienced something similar on the P1 Gen 7 (or other ThinkPads) with Fedora? Any suggestions on how to disable this automatic scaling/limiter or get rid of the initial “buzzing burst”?
Audio stack: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.4.8)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

See section 2.11

PulseAudio/Troubleshooting - ArchWiki

Maybe that can help.

 

[Maiq_The_Liar]

See section 2.11

PulseAudio/Troubleshooting - ArchWiki

Maybe that can help.

Thank you for your reply. Sadly it did not work. The sound still "explodes" when i start a video on a higher volume.

 

[imxcai]

same issue on my ThinkPad P1 gen7.

 

[theLegionWithin]

after running a few searches to narrow down my query, I found the following:

A sudden burst of loud audio on the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 in Linux is likely caused by aggressive power-saving features that put the audio hardware into a low-power state. When a sound stream starts, the system briefly outputs at a full, unattenuated volume while the hardware powers up, before the audio server applies the correct volume settings. This behavior can often be fixed by disabling the audio power-saving features

There are three primary layers to check for power-saving features that can cause audio issues like crackling, popping, or devices going to sleep prematurely on your ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 running Fedora Linux: PipeWire (the sound server), the kernel module, and system power management tools like TLP.  Since recent Fedora versions use PipeWire by default, you should start there.

1. Disable power-saving in PipeWire
 - Create an override file for WirePlumber. The WirePlumber session manager controls PipeWire's behavior. Instead of editing the original configuration, create a new file to override the default settings.
       sudo cp /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua /etc/wireplumber/main.lua.d/51-alsa-disable-power-save.lua
 - Edit the new configuration file. Open the new file with a text editor.
       sudo nano /etc/wireplumber/main.lua.d/51-alsa-disable-power-save.lua
 - Find and edit the suspend timeout. In the file, find the line that controls the suspend timeout and change its value to 0. A semicolon or double dash might be commenting it out, so remove it as well.
        --["session.suspend-timeout-seconds"] = 5, -- 0 disables suspend.
 - Change it to:
       ["session.suspend-timeout-seconds"] = 0,
 - Restart WirePlumber. Apply the changes by restarting the service.
       systemctl --user restart wireplumber.service

2. Disable kernel-level power-saving
 - If the PipeWire change isn't enough, you can also disable the kernel's power-saving feature for your sound card. This is often necessary for Intel-based audio controllers, such as the one in the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7.
 - Create a modprobe configuration file.
       sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/audio_disable_powersave.conf
 - Add the power_save option. Paste the following line into the file to disable power saving for the snd_hda_intel module, which is used for many onboard Intel audio devices.
       options snd_hda_intel power_save=0
 - Reboot your system. This change takes effect only after a reboot.

3. Adjust power management tools (like TLP)
Some laptops, including ThinkPads, may use power management utilities like TLP, which can enforce their own audio power-saving rules.
 - Check if TLP is installed.
       dnf list installed tlp
 - Edit the TLP configuration. If TLP is installed, open its configuration file.
       sudo nano /etc/tlp.conf
 - Change the audio power-save setting. Find the following line and set its value to 0 to disable power saving on battery.
       SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_BAT=0
 - Restart TLP.
       sudo tlp start

How to choose the right fix
 - Start with PipeWire (Method 1). This is the recommended approach for modern Fedora systems and will fix most audio-related power-saving issues.
 - Move to the kernel module (Method 2) if the PipeWire fix does not resolve the issue. This is a more aggressive solution that disables power-saving directly in the driver.
 - Consider the TLP fix (Method 3) if you have TLP installed and the previous methods fail. It's a good idea to check this if you still have issues when running on battery power.

hope that helps! if it doesnt, maybe consider flattening/reloading and reinstalling the distro, or moving to a different distro

 

[zhangheng]

sudo vim /etc/default/grub

GRUB-CMDLINE_LNUX_DEFAULT: Add snd_hda_intel.power_save=0 and snd_hda_intel.power_save_controller=N inside the double quotation marks at the end of the line.

sudo update-grub2
After restarting, check if it is cat /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller N?
cat /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save 0?

Check if it's normal.

 

[DanielLo]

Yeah, that’s your ThinkPad auto-limiting the sound. Try turning off “flat volumes” in PulseAudio or check alsamixer for any auto-gain settings-should fix the loud burst and volume limiter.