ThinkPad E490 - sound/audio only works after specific boot (from poweroff, not any connected plug)

Hi all together and a happy new year!
I am struggling already since several months with the sound/audio on my Lenovo ThinkPad E490. Because I am trying to find the cause since several weeks now, I hope to find some suggestions and help here.

If I boot the notebook after power off, without anything connected, no power supply, no headphone connected in the audio jack and the sound works. It is possible to switch between the notebook sound (pcm0) and the headphone (pcm1) without any issue.
But after a reboot, if anything is connected as e.g. the power supply on the USB-C connector and/or some headphone on the audio jack the notebook makes some very strange and loud noises while booting and after boot I am not able to get notebook to make any noise or sound on any output.

- FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p1 GENERIC amd64
- Latest HW-Probe: https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=1ffaf5420c

These files on gist are from the system, sndstat, dmesg, sysctl I grabbed with the script below: https://gist.github.com/NealsJoe/c940299c2b362381d254b34496ec1d66

Code:
#!/bin/sh

doas cat /dev/sndstat > sndstat.txt

doas pciconf -lv | grep -i audio -B2 > sound-pciconf.txt
doas dmesg | grep -e 'sound' -e 'audio' -e 'snd' -e 'pcm' -e 'hda' > sound-dmesg.txt
doas sysctl -a | grep -e 'sound' -e 'audio' -e 'snd' -e 'pcm' -e 'hda' > sound-sysctl.txt

doas sysctl dev.pcm > sound-sysctl-pcm.txt
doas sysctl dev.hdaa > sound-sysctl-hdaa.txt
doas sysctl dev.hdac > sound-sysctl-hdac.txt
doas sysctl dev.hdacc > sound-sysctl-hdacc.txt
doas sysctl hw.snd > sound-sysctl-snd.txt

Has anybody a clue why the sound does not work if the notebook boots with external connections? An issue of hardware or software? Is it related to the power supply mass connection whose differs in case the power supply is connected?

Any hints are welcome. ;-)
Thanks in advance, Neals
 
Hello,

can you provide the log files with the problem and without the problem? Maybe then you can see a decisive difference.
 
Hello,

can you provide the log files with the problem and without the problem? Maybe then you can see a decisive difference.

Hi Alexander,
I have already added the files (provided above) into a Git Repo and checked them after several reboots for changes.... but there were no essential changes.
 
I get a loud and shrill whistle from my E490 with FreeBSD 12.x-RELEASE almost everytime after a reboot. This happens either with or without any external connections.

I've stopped "rebooting" and instead, just power off and power on. This way there are no weird noises while booting up and audio works from any output - notebook speakers/headphones, usb headphones. I do have to switch the output manually though.

This did not happen on Windows 10 which came installed on the E490.
 
I get a loud and shrill whistle from my E490 with FreeBSD 12.x-RELEASE almost everytime after a reboot. This happens either with or without any external connections.

I've stopped "rebooting" and instead, just power off and power on. This way there are no weird noises while booting up and audio works from any output - notebook speakers/headphones, usb headphones. I do have to switch the output manually though.

This did not happen on Windows 10 which came installed on the E490.

Thanks for this hint. So this issue not specific to my setup.
But I have not yet accepted this circumstance as you did already... ;-)
 
My laptop is Lenovo Thinkpad E490 as OP. I have same problems with sound as OP (on FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE, FreeBSD 13.0-CURRENT).
Intel backlight not working on this laptop too.
On Windows 10 and Arch Linux, audio work normally. So It definitely isn't a hardware error.
 
Maybe the driver fails to put the card in its proper state after a shutdown is issued. So the problem would reside in the drivers DEVICE_SHUTDOWN(9) method.

A cold reboot (power off) or unplugging the card resets the card, and it becomes functional again.

I'd also look at bugzilla.
 
Hi there!
UEFI / BIOS seems to be related.
I'm using FreeBSD 13.1 and could reproduce the loud squeak issue at boot time, after entering the UEFI BIOS setup from grub (fwsetup entry). I removed the menuentry for UEFI Firmware Settings, updated / reinstalled grub and the problem is now gone.
It's been weeks using, suspending, resuming and rebooting the laptop without issues. No need to disconnect or cold boot.
 
Hi there!
UEFI / BIOS seems to be related.
I'm using FreeBSD 13.1 and could reproduce the loud squeak issue at boot time, after entering the UEFI BIOS setup from grub (fwsetup entry). I removed the menuentry for UEFI Firmware Settings, updated / reinstalled grub and the problem is now gone.
It's been weeks using, suspending, resuming and rebooting the laptop without issues. No need to disconnect or cold boot.
Hi, I would like to try out your solution but not sure what exactly I need to do. Can you explain it more ?
 
Hi, I would like to try out your solution but not sure what exactly I need to do. Can you explain it more ?
Sorry for late reply. I ran into the thread again :)
Unfortunately, I thought the problem was solved by updating BIOS / firmware. I can reproduce it if there's a USB device connected, including the USB-C charger :/
Booting into Linux kind of resets the sound card and it clears the problem without the need of removing USB devices. (Now in FreeBSD 14.0 and problem persists)
 
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