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powertop reports that Intel CougarPoint HDMI is 100% active and there are reports that this device consumes a lot of power. If that is so, I would like to disable it as I never use it. Is there a way I can disable it?

I am using Ubuntu 11.10

Mike
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webm0nk3y
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4 Answers4

49

I had the same issue when I updated to Ubuntu 19.10.

  1. Open PulseAudio Volume Control. I believe it's already installed by default.
  2. Click the Configuration tab.
  3. Find your HDMI device and set the Profile to Off.

PulseAudio Volume Control screenshot

If it's not install, you can install the PulseAudio control panel using: 

sudo apt install pavucontrol
Eliah Kagan
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AdamM
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  • This solution is exactly what i needed and still works in 19.10 as of writing. (it isn't installed by default in 19.10) – Dylan Westra Jan 14 '20 at 15:32
  • This is working for Ubuntu 20 by the way. I had system audio sent to analog stereo (aux headphones) but Firefox kept playing sound through my HDMI display speakers. Thank you! – fIwJlxSzApHEZIl Jun 17 '20 at 23:02
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    it keeps enabling itself again after some time. super annoying – sezanzeb Dec 16 '20 at 14:42
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    Any solution to re-enabling issue? I'm using Ubuntu 20.04.. – charith.arumapperuma Jul 07 '21 at 08:14
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    Found the solution for re-enabling. Open `/etc/pulse/default.pa` and comment out `load-module module-switch-on-port-available` line. Save file. Reload pulseaudio using `pulseaudio -k`. – charith.arumapperuma Jul 07 '21 at 08:35
  • @charith.arumapperuma won't that prevent the system from responding to any device which is connected or disconnected? From https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/Modules/#module-switch-on-port-available "module-switch-on-port-available: Since 2.0. Automatically switches the card profile and/or device port when a port changes its availablility status. In practice this happens when plugging in or out something to/from a 3.5mm connector (not on USB sound cards, though, since they don't support jack detection) or a HDMI connector." – craq Mar 16 '22 at 00:28
  • This was the solution I was looking for! I was able to select the laptop sound card as the default fallback device!!! On Linux Mint 20.10 I was able to use the software manger to install `Pavucontrol` – lacostenycoder Jun 24 '22 at 14:18
5
  1. Click on the speaker icon, top right. Choose 'Sound Settings...'
  2. Click on the Hardware tab
  3. Select the HDMI device and choose 'Off' from the pull-down menu.

enter image description here

Tom Brossman
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3

As per other answer:

Off mode in pavucontrol lives it's own life and is not persistent.

Using load-module module-switch-on-port-available in /etc/pulse/default.pa does not look like a desired solution.

Another approach:

  • Sudo Edit: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

  • Add: blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi

  • Run: pulseaudio -k to restart pulseaudio.

Downside: even with it blacklisted it re-appear if it is on a device that is attached after boot. E.g: I have 6 monitors where one have HDMI-audio. If I de-activate the HDMI monitor and then activate it the HDMI-audio for it is activated. Have not investigate why.

user3342816
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-2

To disable the audio device (not just mute) run in terminal 

sudo alsa force-unload

alsa options are

unload|reload|force-unload|force-reload|suspend|resume

In case you require the audio device at a later stage.

madmax2
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