Built-in Speaker and Microphone Marked as Unavailable

antimony · June 18, 2026, 8:19am

Hello friends! So I have a Lenovo Thinkpad E14 and I just installed ZorinOS on it (cuz I was sick of Windows' shenanigans). When I clicked the icons on the right side of the taskbar, I noticed that for some reason the icon of "sound slider" is that of Headphones instead of a Speaker icon. So I went to settings and it really is sourcing Headphones as Output Device (it's also the only option). I also tried going to YouTube to test it but to no surprise, it doesn't make a sound. Only when I plugged-in my headphones did it make a sound.

I tried searching for a solution here and other forums but unfortunately, the problem still persists. I installed PulseAudio (cuz I read it somewhere from a forum) and for some reason, the laptop's internal Speakers and Microphone are marked as unavailable.

Also, it defaults to saying "plugged in" even though I haven't plugged in anything.

tysmia for helping!!

edit: i also want to mention that prior to installing Zorin, the speaker and mic are working but the speaker doesn't produce a good sound (like a meme kind of overblown sound). the mic works just fine.

Nourpon · June 18, 2026, 8:27am

Hello and welcome,
What I read is you should update your bios

and also read that

github.com/ramaureirac/thinkpad-e14-linux

tweaks/audio/README.md

main

## Configure Audio on ThinkPad E14 Second Gen

This error seems to be typical of Debian derivatives. It is possible that it is a buggy package or some other unknown error. To fix it just install the following package:

    sudo apt install -y firmware-sof-signed

Both audio and internal mic should work after restart your machine.

## Configure Audio on ThinkPad E14 Second Gen (Alternative)

According to [Barabazs](https://github.com/rodmaureirac/thinkpad-e14-linux/issues/9) it seems some second gen laptops are having issues with external speakers. We actually do
not know why this happens, however Barabazs found a solution by disabling the internal mic. In order to do apply this patch:

Open your favorite editor and append this line `snd_hda_intel.dmic_detect=0` inside the `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT` entry on `/etc/default/grub` config file

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash ... snd_hda_intel.dmic_detect=0"
    
Then rebuild your GRUB and restart your machine

    sudo update-grub && reboot

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antimony · June 18, 2026, 8:29am

oh my, tysm for the fast reply!! i see, i will try it!

zabadabadoo · June 18, 2026, 8:54am

Can you tell us what soundcard/s that Lenovo Thinkpad E14 has?

Another tool you can launch in terminal that may help diagnose sound issues is alsamixer.
Start a terminal session by Ctrl+Alt+t
then type

alsamixer

Hit F6 to check sound card is listed.

Hit F5 to display All sound channels.
Check no channels are showing Muted [MM] or low volume.
Unmute by selecting the channel using cursor keys and Hit M to unmute. Use up arrow to increase volume.

Have a play with sound channels [Loopback Mode] and [Auto-Mute] settings. Select then toggle the options.

Maybe post a screenshot of your alsamixer here, so we can also have a look and see if anything obvious.

antimony · June 19, 2026, 5:48pm

hello! i just finished updating the BIOS (it was a bit nerve-racking with all the warnings and shi ngl xD) but sadly, the problem still persists (Speakers and Internal Mic still marked as unavailable and unplugged respectively) T T. i also tried the other one but it also didn't work

antimony · June 19, 2026, 5:56pm

hello zaba! from the alsamixer, it says my sound card is an "HDA Intel PCH". Here's my alsamixer configuration:

thanks for replying!

antimony · June 19, 2026, 6:16pm

UPDATE: I tried moving the slider below the "Port" in PulseAudio and it made beeping sounds! Though, I am not entirely sure if it was due to the fixes you guys suggested as I did not move the slider before applying said fixes. But hey, it is a step in the right direction! haha

edit: idk if this will help but I just noticed that if I select "Speakers (unavailable)" and "Internal Microphone (unplugged)" options, my sound settings says that there are no I/O Devices. I also want to mention that it does go beep (like the sound you hear when adjusting the volume but overblown cuz as I said in the original post, it had some problems) even when it says Speakers are unavailable.

zabadabadoo · June 20, 2026, 1:13pm

From alsamixer indicating the soundcard as Conexant, I just did a webseach using "Conexant CX11880 No output devices Ubuntu 24.04", as Z18 is based on Ubuntu 24.04.
Found this item, which does not show a simple fix, may give you or orther helpers here a steer. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1532567/no-sound-in-24-04-lts-sound-settings-list-no-output-devices

From your alsamixer screenshots. Have you tried unmuting the 2 channels indicated as Muted "MM" ?
After you unmute the [Headphone] channel, try a pair of wired headphones, to see if any sound from them?

antimony · June 21, 2026, 11:25am

Tysm for the lead! I will look into it! As for the alsamixer, you mean the Headphones and S/PDIF channels right? For the Headphone channel, I didn't really toggle to unmute it but I did use the arrow up key to move it from 0 to 100. I've already tried and yeah, wired and wireless headphones works. As for the S/PDIF, I didn't bother configuring it cuz from what I searched online, I don't have something that uses it.

zabadabadoo · June 22, 2026, 2:13pm

[quote="antimony, post:9, topic:65503"]
As for the alsamixer, you mean the Headphones and S/PDIF channels right?
[/quote.
Yes. they are shown as MM i.e. Muted.
To unmute a channel, you need to select it, then type "M" to unmute.

Jason21 · June 22, 2026, 6:32pm

antimony:

Hello friends! So I have a Lenovo Thinkpad E14 and I just installed ZorinOS on it (cuz I was sick of Windows' shenanigans). When I clicked the icons on the right side of the taskbar, I noticed that for some reason the icon of "sound slider" is that of Headphones instead of a Speaker icon. So I went to settings and it really is sourcing Headphones as Output Device (it's also the only option). I also tried going to YouTube to test it but to no surprise, it doesn't make a sound. Only when I plugged-in my headphones did it make a sound.

I tried searching for a solution here and other forums but unfortunately, the problem still persists. I installed PulseAudio (cuz I read it somewhere from a forum) and for some reason, the laptop's internal Speakers and Microphone are marked as unavailable.

image500×432 18.3 KB

image500×432 18.5 KB

Also, it defaults to saying "plugged in" even though I haven't plugged in anything.

tysmia for helping!!

edit: i also want to mention that prior to installing Zorin, the speaker and mic are working but the speaker doesn't produce a good sound (like a meme kind of overblown sound). the mic works just fine.

Since the speakers and microphone were working before installing Zorin, this sounds more like a driver or audio detection issue than a hardware problem. The fact that the system always thinks headphones are plugged in is a pretty strong clue.

I had a similar issue on a laptop where the audio jack detection wasn't working correctly, so the internal speakers stayed disabled all the time. It might be worth checking whether the correct audio device is being detected by the system and whether any muted channels are showing up in alsamixer.

Also, the distorted sound you mentioned under Windows makes me wonder if there could be a codec-related issue affecting both operating systems. Knowing the exact audio chipset in the ThinkPad might help narrow things down.