Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
Thanks, Kamil
I imagine this is the “pcspkr” kernel module which seems to be loaded by default (verified with the F37 Beta Workstation ISO in QEMU)
On Sep 22, 2022, at 10:42, Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote:
Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
Thanks, Kamil
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On Thu, 22 Sep 2022 10:41:18 +0200 Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote:
Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
alsa usually has the pc speaker disabled. It has been a long time, but I think there is a configuration option that can turn it on. Is it possible that you have somehow turned this on?
I found this in the arch linux documentation,
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PC_speaker
Globally
The PC speaker can be disabled by unloading the pcspkr kernel module: Note: This will not disable your entire sound system, only the PC speaker.
# rmmod pcspkr
Blacklisting the pcspkr module will prevent udev from loading it at boot. Create the file:
/etc/modprobe.d/nobeep.conf
blacklist pcspkr
Blacklisting it on the kernel command line is yet another way. Simply add modprobe.blacklist=pcspkr to your bootloader's kernel line.
ALSA
For most sound cards the PC speaker is listed as an ALSA channel, named either PC Speaker, PC Beep, or Beep. To mute the speaker, either use alsamixer or amixer , for example:
$ amixer set 'PC Speaker' 0% mute
To unmute the channel, see Advanced Linux Sound Architecture#Unmuting the channels. Tip: If you are using PulseAudio and the PC speaker channel is not listed for the default ALSA device, try selecting the device corresponding to the sound card - PulseAudio proxy controls may not list the PC speaker.
On Thu, 2022-09-22 at 10:41 +0200, Kamil Paral wrote:
Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
I experienced this 2 or 3 times (I think while installing fed 34 and fed 35). A very very loud screeching beep. I almost fell of my chair. So I don't think it has anything specially to do with fed 37. At the time I thought that something was wrong with the laptop or that I had done something not compatible with normal laptop use. But as everything worked normally afterwards I forgot about it. And I also forgot to lookup information about 'signals' related to pc functioning.
Strange that you experience this randomly. Maybe fed 37 has activated the pc speaker in a strange way Stan demonstrates it can be turned off but unless this can be demonstrated to be a quirk of fed 37 I think I would like to know the cause. .
AV
I am also experiencing this behaviour, but as I used to hear computers making any kinds of funny noises in the past, I am not bothered by this, so I did not even notice it. My laptops are Lenovo P1 and Lenovo T580. They both produce the beep sounds.
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 2:28 AM AV via test test@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, 2022-09-22 at 10:41 +0200, Kamil Paral wrote:
Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
I experienced this 2 or 3 times (I think while installing fed 34 and fed 35). A very very loud screeching beep. I almost fell of my chair. So I don't think it has anything specially to do with fed 37. At the time I thought that something was wrong with the laptop or that I had done something not compatible with normal laptop use. But as everything worked normally afterwards I forgot about it. And I also forgot to lookup information about 'signals' related to pc functioning.
Strange that you experience this randomly. Maybe fed 37 has activated the pc speaker in a strange way Stan demonstrates it can be turned off but unless this can be demonstrated to be a quirk of fed 37 I think I would like to know the cause. .
AV _______________________________________________ test mailing list -- test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to test-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/test@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
On Thu, 22 Sep 2022 10:41:18 +0200 Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote:
Completely randomly, my laptop sometimes emits a loud PC speaker beep while rebooting/powering off Fedora 37. The beep is very strong, and as a PC speaker sound, it of course ignores any configured volume level, mute status, and even headphones plugged in. I fortunately am in a different room than the rest of my family sleeps in, but if I were in the same room, and were I just a regular user, this would probably be the last day of Fedora on that laptop. The beep is that loud and uncomfortable, especially at night.
I wonder if somebody else running F37 noticed it as well? Any hints what might cause it and how we can fix it? It never happened on F36 on the same laptop.
I forgot to reply to this part of the message. I have been running F37 since it was rawhide, and have never heard this beep. But, I'm running a desktop, so that might make a difference. And a question. Are you sure this is the PC speaker, and not something sending sound to the sound device during startup? Does the sound come from the speakers or does it come from the internals of the PC? The PC speaker is on the MB, so should only be heard from inside the case.
I run a custom kernel, and I have the config options for the speaker set as follows:
CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y # CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR is not set
I think the last option means the pcspkr is disabled.
If you go to /boot, and run the following on the last config file, grep -i spk config-[kernelversion] what does it show?
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 5:13 PM stan via test test@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
I forgot to reply to this part of the message. I have been running F37 since it was rawhide, and have never heard this beep. But, I'm running a desktop, so that might make a difference. And a question. Are you sure this is the PC speaker, and not something sending sound to the sound device during startup?
It's during shutdown, not startup. Yes, I'm sure. It's the same sound as when I want to go to UEFI config during startup or show a one-time boot menu. The sound is unmistakable.
I run a custom kernel, and I have the config options for the speaker set as follows:
CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y # CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR is not set
I have the stock Fedora kernel:
# grep -i pcspkr /boot/config-5.19.9-300.fc37.x86_64 CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR=m
I'm aware I could blacklist the pcspkr module, but I don't want to fix this just for myself.
On Fri, 2022-09-23 at 17:20 +0200, Kamil Paral wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 5:13 PM stan via test test@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
I forgot to reply to this part of the message. I have been running F37 since it was rawhide, and have never heard this beep. But, I'm running a desktop, so that might make a difference. And a question. Are you sure this is the PC speaker, and not something sending sound to the sound device during startup?
It's during shutdown, not startup. Yes, I'm sure. It's the same sound as when I want to go to UEFI config during startup or show a one-time boot menu. The sound is unmistakable.
I run a custom kernel, and I have the config options for the speaker set as follows:
CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y # CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR is not set
I have the stock Fedora kernel:
# grep -i pcspkr /boot/config-5.19.9-300.fc37.x86_64 CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR=m
I'm aware I could blacklist the pcspkr module, but I don't want to fix this just for myself.
I found this behavior on my Fedora 35
grep -i pcspkr /boot/config-5.19.8-100.fc35.x86_64 CONFIG_HAVE_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_PCSPKR_PLATFORM=y CONFIG_INPUT_PCSPKR=m
On Fri, 2022-09-23 at 08:13 -0700, stan via test wrote:
I forgot to reply to this part of the message. I have been running F37 since it was rawhide, and have never heard this beep. But, I'm running a desktop, so that might make a difference. And a question. Are you sure this is the PC speaker, and not something sending sound to the sound device during startup? Does the sound come from the speakers or does it come from the internals of the PC? The PC speaker is on the MB, so should only be heard from inside the case.
It isn't nearly so simple. The PC "squeeker" is ancient PC tech but almost every sound chip has an input to route it into the rest of the audio system and a mixer control to adjust it. Almost every PC motherboard also has a header to directly connect a speaker. This allows one to hear sounds created by the BIOS during POST, before the modern audio chip is initialized.
Whether the motherboard or laptop actually connects the PC Speaker to the audio codec is almost entirely random. Whether anything is connected to the raw "squeeker" pins is random but tending more toward "not" every year that passes.
Not allowing Linux to load the pcspeaker module will stop Linux from ever making a sound via that path but system level software running at higher privilege than the main OS can and often does use the speaker, over temp, fan failure, POST error, a happy beep at boot, all these things can still make sounds and there is a speaker attached or if the electrical connection is in place and the audio codec still has it enabled as a machine reboots, you can get beeps.
About the only fix Linux could make is to ensure all audio channels are muted as the system goes into shutdown, reboot, sleep or suspend. That still won't stop a directly connected beeper though.
On Fri, 23 Sep 2022 14:50:37 -0500 John Morris jmorris@beau.org wrote:
It isn't nearly so simple. The PC "squeeker" is ancient PC tech but almost every sound chip has an input to route it into the rest of the audio system and a mixer control to adjust it. Almost every PC motherboard also has a header to directly connect a speaker. This allows one to hear sounds created by the BIOS during POST, before the modern audio chip is initialized.
Whether the motherboard or laptop actually connects the PC Speaker to the audio codec is almost entirely random. Whether anything is connected to the raw "squeeker" pins is random but tending more toward "not" every year that passes.
Not allowing Linux to load the pcspeaker module will stop Linux from ever making a sound via that path but system level software running at higher privilege than the main OS can and often does use the speaker, over temp, fan failure, POST error, a happy beep at boot, all these things can still make sounds and there is a speaker attached or if the electrical connection is in place and the audio codec still has it enabled as a machine reboots, you can get beeps.
About the only fix Linux could make is to ensure all audio channels are muted as the system goes into shutdown, reboot, sleep or suspend. That still won't stop a directly connected beeper though.
Thanks for the information. I hear no beeps ever, so my system must be without any issues, or one of the random ones without a tie to the onboard sound chip.
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 9:51 PM John Morris jmorris@beau.org wrote:
About the only fix Linux could make is to ensure all audio channels are muted as the system goes into shutdown, reboot, sleep or suspend. That still won't stop a directly connected beeper though.
You're making it sound as if I wanted to prevent firmware-caused beeps. I don't. I'm pretty sure that the beep I'm complaining about is OS-caused, and most likely systemd-caused. The links to other people's complaints confirm my experience.
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AV -
John Morris -
Kamil Paral -
Lukas Ruzicka -
Sean Mottles -
stan -
Sérgio Basto