ROG Ally: HDMI audio cuts out frequently when docked (Bounty $60 USD)
This seems to have been posted a few other places around the net, but I couldn't find a post here about it, so I'm making one in the hopes someone can help me troubleshoot this.
By "dropouts" or "cuts out" I mean that all audio goes silent for a couple seconds, and then comes back.
ROG Ally on a USB-C dock (seems to happen on multiple docks). I've also heard the Ally X has the same issue.
The device basically has to be restarted for HDMI audio to even be usable. Attempting to dock it multiple times or take it out of sleep without restarting just results in delayed audio and constant dropouts.
But even when the device has been restarted, the HDMI audio still cuts out occasionally (I would say every few minutes there is an occurrence).
I am not used to troubleshooting things on bazzite, but I have linux experience and I am available to collect whatever information folks might be curious about.
Appreciate your time and any help you might be able to provide!
38 Replies
If there turns out to be a software solution to this, I'm happy to donate to whoever can figure it out.
$30 USD
Gamemode or desktop mode?
So far it’s been all in game mode, I have not tried desktop mode. I will take a look when I get home from work and see
Unless @Chas_Hodges already knows, they have the same issue on an ally x and may have tried desktop mode already
Ive seen it primarily in game mode too
To add my experience:
I tend to experience audio drop outs of about a 1/2 second every few minutes. At its worst, this can be multiple times a minute. At its best, after a fresh power cycle, it can be a good hour or so before the issue arises, but it will always come back eventually, more readily when resuming from sleep.
It is not a bandwidth issue - this is just as prevalent when idling on the home screen or when running at max gpu clocks with a 4k output. It is exclusive to HDMI though. It does not happen in handheld mode at all.
There is a possibility that TV choice makes a difference, but this has been very hard to pinpoint. In my house I have one 4k samsung screen, and a much older TV which may only output at 1080i which makes A/B testing difficult
Semi-recent kernel updates (circa 12/24) have made a little difference for the better which suggests there is a software fix out there
They haven't resolved the issue completely though
Anecdotally, recent updates in the last week or so have made things much worse with much more frequent cutouts
Fuck it, I'll match this bounty - if you're able to change the title of the post to $60, I'm in
Cant recreate on my Ally z1e with steam deck dock, audio works fine outputting to both a monitor(spectre c25) and tv (tcl 43s405). Have not tried an hdmi soundbar or whatever else though.
and you have the hdmi set as your audio output? can you share more about what dock you’re using?
Its the official Steam Deck dock. I use "External Device" set as the audio output. Make sure the "Family" one is maxed out though
Im just about to do some more testing on this, I don’t have an official SD dock but I’ll verify what I have set
I can test with the jsaux 5 in 1 dock as well. I'm on bone stock bazzite with nothing layered ,no tweaks done or anything.
Believe I’m on the jsaux as well. Ally z1e too.
Normally the issue does take quite some time to start popping up (~1hr ish maybe) but I’m gonna try popping in and out of sleep to induce it sooner
mine is not technically the jsaux dock but it looks so similar that I’m 90% sure it’s just a clone with identical hardware but from another Chinese brand. And I have a j5 create mini dock as well, just hdmi, power, and one usb port
I have it plugged into the jsaux into my tcl tv, will see if anything happens in an hour or so
Oh, the only thing I have changed is i am using LADV scheduler. Dont think thatll matter though. I have dark souls 2 w lighting engine running and will just let it sit for and hour or so more
Sleep is prevented when in a game, right? Or am I misremembering
Not sure, but i dont believe so, Im pretty sure ive fell asleep with a game on and woke up to the device asleep on the dock
gotcha. Are you just pressing buttons on yours occasionally? Trying to figure out how attentive I need to be w this thing. All my other times encountering the issue I’ve been actively playing games
Ill probably just disable sleep unless the power button is pressed
I play pretty consistently using hdmi on the steam deck dock and have never had this issue
However more recently I've been using display port with my 1080/240hz monitor instead and using and external sound card. So if this issue has appeared recently i havent seen it
Only audio bug i have had is while switching into gamescope, audio through the 3.5mm will pop in and out pretty violently once.
So…this is interesting. It seems no matter what I do on my LG C2 oled, I can NOT make this happen. It’s my bedroom tv so until now I’ve never really tried to hook up my ally to it, but I wanted to test things out and my s/o was watching tv in the living room.
I couldn’t even get the audio to become delayed.
Yet when I returned to the living room (a lesser LG but still a 4k tv), I was able to make the delayed audio happen nearly instantly. I’m trying to see if I can induce the dropouts now.
Edit: yeah, audio dropouts as well
Haven't had any audio dropouts, cuts or hizzing, delay or anything on mine so far.
you have it in the monitor atm?
I use the JSAUX HB1201S dock plugged to my monitor via Display Port with my OG Z1E and the only audio problem I've had is that it always defaults to the inner speakers at boot
This is very anecdotal, but after seeing this from a windows user, I find it very interesting that I can easily recreate the issue on my 60hz tv but not on my 120hz tv
No, 4k60hz tcl4 series
Have you tried changing the refresh rate as it says in that comment?
I couldn’t even get the delay on my 120hz tv, but on my 60hz tv it’s basically “dock it, put it to sleep, wake it up, boom the audio is delayed by over a second”
The issue is that in bazzite gamescope I don’t think you can control refresh rate, at least not that I’ve seen
I will try the sleep and wake thing to see if i can replicate that
You can select different edid values in steam display settings and if you disable frame rate lock you get a slider for display fps instead, although tht might only be on the built in display
It should give you the option in the change resolution settings. For instance:
4K @ 120Hz
4K @ 60Hz
etc. Depending on your TV and connection
Still no delay after device was put into sleep and woken up again
Anything really youve done specifically with your install at all? Again, im on bone stock bazzite besides I used hhd to switch to LADV.
Nah, I’ve done 0 tweaks to mine except what the bazzite docs said to do for this device, ex. changing settings in HHD
Try this: in console type "ujust install-lact" afterwards you'll find LACT in utilities. From there, set to maximum clocks for the gpu. Unfortunately this will draw more power, and you'll have to change it back undocked which isn't ideal. I just want to see if it works
You can just do this in hhd without lact
Just go into the tdp section and use a fixed clock maxed out
Ah yeah you're right, I keep forgetting that's a thing on handhelds
Listen to them lol
For some reason AMD drivers are a little wonky with HDMI audio, and this was the fix for my living room pc
Is this something you can set from Steam OS / Gamescope?
I don’t believe so, at least not that specific. You can only set 60, 120, etc. it doesn’t have the specific decimal numbers
Experimented with some Pipewire conf settings this evening - it's improved if not eliminated the problem
It's too late now as I need to go to bed, but I'll collate what I've tweaked and share tomorrow evening after work
Could be placebo, but I feel like the tweaks I've made have massively reduced drop outs and also made them less severe when they do occur
I've also been having these issues. Would love a solution!! Look forward to your results @Chas_Hodges
Hey! Sorry about the delay in getting back to everyone. I explored these tweaks, but after more intensive testing, I'm not confused they make any difference
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/18iv272/solved_random_hdmi_audio_dropouts_midgame_pipewire/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/771884
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There's some other *.conf files I've been trying to explore too, but I don't think I have anything concrete to share
the more I mess around the more it seems like this is actually a completely unfixable problem, possibly due to a core issue with the Ally hardware and how Bazzite / Fedora handles audio with Pipewire
Sounds like we might have to wait for official steam OS Support . Hopefully coming soon
spent more time fiddling with settings last night - it's all placebo, from my testing
I increase or decrease say, the latency figures for pipewire - audio will then be fine for half an our before a series of cut outs, or it'll cut out immediately within a minute or rebooting the machine
no rhyme or reason at all
interestingly, using the terminal command 'pw-top' you can see in real time which audio streams are running, and their latency etc
it also logs any errors where a sample over or under runs
I caught one of these blips live, and it did register as an error
I'm not really sure what to do with this information, but at least it confirms there has been an audio error, which eliminates the TV / monitor as the issue - it's definitely related to either the Ally hardware and how it interacts with bazzite's linux implementation, or is a wider Fedora issue that may affect many people (though they might not be as susceptible to noticing)