Constant noise in speakers and headphones

Question

On my laptop, Samsung 300V5A-S19 I have the constant noise from the speakers. If I wear headphones, the sound becomes more pronounced (at half volume it mutes the music). The noise level is independent of the volume control. The noise disappears only when volume is completely muted. For the record, the sound is reminiscent of the noise of the waves or something like that.

System information: Ubuntu 12.10, kernel 3.5.0-18

Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)

All packages in the system updated.

PS: Following the advice from this message (click) yielded no result.

Solution 1

The most probable cause of constant noise coming in from the speakers is usually mic boost. In order to disable this:

1. Open a terminal.
2. Type alsamixer and press Enter.
3. Reduce the Mic Boost and Internal Mic Boost to zero. Refer to screenshot.

Solution 2

The problem goes away after disabling the Auto-Mute mode. Run alsamixer in the terminal, scroll to the right and press up/down to enable or disable Auto-Mute mode

Solution 3

I had this problem and solved it by disabling "loopback" in alsamixer. (open alsamixer, and disable the rightmost control)

Comments

[Presbitero]

Do you hear a difference when your laptop pluged in/connected to the ground and when it is not?

[David]

Do you have alsa setup so that when a mic is plugged in the audio is played through the speakers.

[user103978]

What is the connection between the microphone and playback audio through headphones? I have a microphone built into the notebook

[Jon Hanna]

I just had the same problem, and in my case it turned out to be Skype that was the culprit. I've unchecked "Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels", and will see how that goes. If successful I'll add it as an answer (it may not be the answer to this user, but I doubt I'm the only person in the world with the exact same solution to a variant of this).

[Jon Hanna]

My skype problem was due to my setting up a startup file that didn't use env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 as per the desktop file. I don't think it's related to your issue.

[titusjaka]

I tried that. It is not the case.

[user103978]

yes, it's not the case

[Kavya Gokul]

It's possible that your microphone input is looped into your speakers. I had this problem when pulseaudio first came out.

[titusjaka]

You were almost right, but instead Mic boost I completely turned off Mic in alsamixer. After that noise has stopped. But the only way to turn it on/off is launching alsamixer, it's not comfortable. Maybe, there is any other way?

[Kavya Gokul]

Does the noise still come out when mic volume is green and not all the way up to red? Also, have you tried setting mic volume to zero in the sound properties?

[kraxor]

Could you please clarify your answer? E.g. how to disable "auto mute mode"?

[user1652575]

@titusjaka Did you solve your problem? I have the same problem and it drives me crazy.

[SuperJer]

Late to the party, but the problem exists on my Intel HDA soundcard under 16.04. Fixed by disabling Loopback in AlsaMixer. aggravation == gone

[G. Meyer]

Somehow for me changing the Headphone Mic Boost from 0 dB to 10 dB totally killed the noise. (16.04)

[Alfonso Nishikawa]

This improved but not fully muted. Thanks!

[duykhoa]

You can use the arrow keys (up or down), then press ESC to quit the alsamixer

[Feras Odeh]

Thanks. This fix it.

[zugzug]

Helped me to solve my problem. Thank you, sir!

[Antoni]

This answer did the trick for me, i think i accidentally enabled it.