Johnny Matthews | Fixing Razer Speakers on Linux

What’s going on

The interface that I’m specifically dealing with is the ALC298. It needs a long sequence of codec coefficient writes to initialize its internal speaker amplifier. Windows does this at boot, but the Linux kernel doesn’t have a quirk for the Blade 14 yet so the amp never gets switched on.

The fix is to run those writes youself using hda-verb, courtesy of a script collected by yadu-tv on GitHub (originally derived from jamir’s kernel bugzilla work). Thanks team!

It was written for the 2023 model but works on the 2022 RZ09-0508 too, and likely any Blade 14 with the ALC298.

Confirm you have the right hardware

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep -i "codec:"

You should see Realtek ALC298 somewhere in the output. If not, this fix isn’t for your machine.

If you’re still with me, note which card number the device lives on:

grep -l ALC298 /proc/asound/card*/codec*

If it’s anything other than card2, you’ll need to edit the script later to match (the script hardcodes hwC2D0, where the 2 is the card number).

Setup the script

You need alsa-tools
```
sudo apt install alsa-tools -y
```
Grab the script from GitHub:
```
cd ~
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yadu-tv/rb14-2023-audio-fix/main/rb_audio.sh
chmod +x rb_audio.sh
```
If that link is no longer working, I’ve mirrored it here.
Have a quick look at the script before you run it. It’s a couple thousand lines of hda-verb calls writing coefficients to codec node 0x20. No filesystem changes, no persistence, nothing scary. Worst case it does nothing.
Run it manually just to test things:
```
sudo bash ~/rb_audio.sh
```
You’ll see a wall of nid = 0x20, verb = ..., value = 0x0 output. That’s good: value = 0x0 means each write was accepted. Play something through your speakers. They should work.

Make it run on every boot

The codec resets on reboot, so set up a systemd service to have it run everytime you login.

Move the script somewhere sensible:
```
sudo mv ~/rb_audio.sh /usr/local/bin/rb_audio.sh
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/rb_audio.sh
```
Create this file at /etc/systemd/system/rb_audio.service:
```
[Unit]
Description=Razer Blade 14 ALC298 speaker initialization
After=sound.target
Wants=sound.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rb_audio.sh
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
Enable and start it:
```
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable rb_audio.service
sudo systemctl start rb_audio.service
sudo systemctl status rb_audio.service
```
Look for Active: active (exited) in the status output. Reboot to confirm speakers come up working on their own.

If suspend/resume kills the audio

The codec state may reset when the laptop suspends. If you find speakers go silent after closing and reopening the lid, drop a second unit file in /etc/systemd/system/rb_audio-resume.service:

[Unit]
Description=Re-init ALC298 speakers after resume
After=suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target suspend-then-hibernate.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rb_audio.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target suspend-then-hibernate.target

Then:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable rb_audio-resume.service

Speakers should now work on every boot and after every wake.