Re: [PATCH] ALSA: hda/intel: Add MSI X870E Tomahawk to denylist by DMI ID

[Mario Limonciello]

On 3/27/26 11:39, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:15:38 +0100,
> Mario Limonciello wrote:
> > On 3/27/26 10:57, Stuart Hayhurst wrote:
> > > This motherboard uses USB audio instead, causing this driver to complain
> > > about "no codecs found!".
> > > Add it to the denylist to silence the warning.
> > >
> > > The first attempt only matched on the PCI device, but this caused issues
> > > for some laptops, so DMI match against the board as well.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Stuart Hayhurst <stuart.a.hayhurst@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Takashi,
> >
> > Probably worth asking - why is the "no codecs found" ERR in the first
> > place?  There are obviously designs out there like this, should the
> > ERR message be simmered down?
>
> Although HD-audio is a bus that can be dynamically enabled / disabled
> codecs, it's been supposed to be rather static and exposed only if
> there is really a need for it -- that is, only if there is a codec on
> it.  So "no codec" is seen as an error for now if you try to
> initialize the HD-audio controller.
>
> We may downgrade it, but the situation is still not ideal either; the
> driver is still bound without serving anything useful, and it needs to
> react for the PM and other things.  Since the probe of codecs happens
> after the driver probe stage, the driver can't go away by itself,
> unfortunately.
>
>
> thanks,
>
> Takashi

I guess in an ideal world systems like this (where physically there is 
USB audio and HD audio, but HD audio has no codecs connected to it)
the BIOS should avoid exposing the HD audio device on the PCI bus.

Stuart,

In parallel could you try spinning up a thread with your MB vendor?  If 
they're willing, maybe a future BIOS can also stop exposing the HD audio 
PCI device.

If you end up having a good experience that could be the way we approach 
this problem in the future.