No audio on Dell XPS 16 2026 (Panther Lake) - CS42L45 + CS35L57 - no driver for CS42L45, missing firmware

[jakeb-grant]

Description

No audio output on the Dell XPS 16 2026 (Intel Core Ultra Series 3, Panther Lake). The
sound card fails to register due to a missing CS42L45 SDCA jack codec driver and missing
device-specific firmware.

Hardware

• Laptop: Dell XPS 16 2026
• CPU: Intel Core Ultra x7 (Panther Lake)
• Audio PCI device: 00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device e428 (rev 01)
• Subsystem ID: 10280dba
• SoundWire devices:
  • Link 0: CS42L45 jack codec (mfg_id 0x01fa, part_id 0x4245, version 0x3)
  • Link 2: CS35L57 speaker amps x2 (mfg_id 0x01fa, part_id 0x3557, version 0x3)
  • Link 3: CS35L57 speaker amps x2 (mfg_id 0x01fa, part_id 0x3557, version 0x3)

Kernel / Firmware Versions

• Kernel: 7.0.0-rc6-1-mainline (also tested 6.19.10-arch1-1)
• sof-firmware: 2025.12.2-1
• linux-firmware: latest from Arch repos
• Distro: Arch Linux

Symptoms

On kernel 7.0-rc6

Sound card permanently stuck in deferred probe. CS35L57 amps detect but remain UNATTACHED
and unpatched. No snd_soc_cs42l45 kernel module exists — the CS42L45 jack codec has no
driver to bind to.

sof-audio-pci-intel-ptl 0000:00:1f.3: Use SoundWire default machine driver with function
topologies
cs35l56 sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:2: Cirrus Logic CS35L57 Rev B2 OTP1 fw:4.2.1 (patched=0)
cs35l56 sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:2: Slave 2 state check1: UNATTACHED, status was 1
cs35l56 sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:3: Cirrus Logic CS35L57 Rev B2 OTP1 fw:4.2.1 (patched=0)
cs35l56 sdw:0:3:01fa:3557:01:0: Cirrus Logic CS35L57 Rev B2 OTP1 fw:4.2.1 (patched=0)
cs35l56 sdw:0:3:01fa:3557:01:1: Cirrus Logic CS35L57 Rev B2 OTP1 fw:4.2.1 (patched=0)
platform sof_sdw: deferred probe pending: sof_sdw: snd_soc_register_card failed -517

aplay -l and /proc/asound/cards report no sound cards.

On kernel 6.19.10

Kernel oops in sdca_jack_process, crashing the entire sound card registration:

sof_sdw sof_sdw: Failed to register jack: -524
RIP: 0010:sdca_jack_process+0x47/0x3b0 [snd_soc_sdca]
sof_sdw sof_sdw: error -ENOTSUPP: snd_soc_register_card failed -524

Additionally, topology ABI mismatch: topology files are ABI 3.29.1 but kernel expects
3.23.1.

Missing Pieces

1. No CS42L45 kernel driver: modinfo snd_soc_cs42l45 returns "Module not found" on
   7.0-rc6. The kernel has cs42l42, cs42l43, cs42l84 — but no cs42l45.

2. No firmware for subsystem 10280dba: The upstream linux-firmware sdca/1fa/1028/
   directory contains db3/, e1a/, e22/ — but no dba/ for this XPS 16 SKU. The CS35L57
   amp firmware exists in cirrus/ (cs35l57-b2-dsp1-misc-10280dba-*) but the CS42L45 SDCA
   firmware does not.

Related

• Ubuntu Bug
  #2139391 —
  CS42L45+CS35L57 support confirmed working on Dell 10280db3/10280db4 with
  linux-oem-6.17/6.17.0-1013.13
• Phoronix: CS42L45 firmware
  upstreamed — firmware added
  for some Dell/Lenovo PTL models in Jan 2026, but not this subsystem ID
• Issue No sound from speakers on Dell XPS 14 on kernel 6.16 #5515 — related SDCA function detection fix for Dell XPS 14

[jakeb-grant]

On The Missing CS42L45 SDCA Firmware

What's present

• CS35L57 amp firmware exists in cirrus/:
  cs35l57-b2-dsp1-misc-10280dba-spkid{0,1}-*.bin.zst and .wmfw.zst
• CS42L45 SDCA firmware exists for other Dell subsystem IDs under sdca/1fa/1028/: db3/,
  e1a/, e22/

What's missing

• sdca/1fa/1028/dba/ — no CS42L45 SDCA firmware for subsystem 10280dba (Dell XPS 16 2026)

Could this be routed to Cirrus Logic for firmware submission? The Cirrus GitHub mirror
(CirrusLogic/linux-firmware) and the kernel GitLab (kernel-firmware/linux-firmware) don't
appear to have issue trackers for firmware requests.

[rfvirgil]

No CS42L45 kernel driver

Yes there is. CS42L45 is handled by the SDCA class driver sound/soc/sdca/sdca_class.c.
This is present in 6.19 kernel.

no CS42L45 SDCA firmware for subsystem 10280dba

This has been available from linux-firmware since January.
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/WHENCE?id=8ca12d6383d06805774d341dc2e8cf1133cb8f9d

[jakeb-grant]

@rfvirgil Thanks for the correction;

On kernel 6.19.10 (Arch stock): crash in sdca_jack_process+0x47/0x3b0 resulting in -ENOTSUPP, card registration fails with -524:

sof_sdw sof_sdw: Failed to register jack: -524
RIP: 0010:sdca_jack_process+0x47/0x3b0 [snd_soc_sdca]
sof_sdw sof_sdw: error -ENOTSUPP: snd_soc_register_card failed -524

On kernel 7.0-rc6 (linux-mainline): no crash, but all four CS35L57 amps report patched=0, go UNATTACHED, and the sound card is permanently stuck in deferred probe (-517):

cs35l56 sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:2: Cirrus Logic CS35L57 Rev B2 OTP1 fw:4.2.1 (patched=0)
cs35l56 sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:2: Slave 2 state check1: UNATTACHED, status was 1
platform sof_sdw: deferred probe pending: sof_sdw: snd_soc_register_card failed -517

No audio devices appear in aplay -l or wpctl status on either kernel.

Is there any additional debug info that would be helpful?

[jakeb-grant]

Update: Root Cause Found — Packaging Issue, Not Upstream

Apologies for the incorrect initial report about missing drivers/firmware. After further investigation, the CS42L45 SDCA class driver and firmware are both present — the issue was a missing kernel config option.

Root Cause

CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_CLASS is not enabled in the prebuilt linux-mainline 7.0-rc6 kernel (miffe repository). The AUR linux-mainline PKGBUILD config is also missing this option entirely. So building from AUR would produce the same result.

The Arch stock 6.19 kernel has it enabled, but hits the separate sdca_jack_process crash.

7.0-rc6 (miffe / AUR):
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_CLASS is not set

CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_FDL missing entirely

6.19 (Arch stock):
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_CLASS=m
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_CLASS_FUNCTION=m
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_FDL=y

How We Found It

The CS42L45 was Attached on the SoundWire bus but had no driver bound and no modalias:

sdw:0:0:01fa:4245:01: driver=NO DRIVER modalias=none
sdw:0:2:01fa:3557:01:2: driver=cs35l56 modalias=sdw:m01FAp3557v03c01

SoundWire link 0 (CS42L45) also had a clock stop timeout:

soundwire_intel soundwire_intel.link.0: prepare clock stop failed -110
soundwire_intel soundwire_intel.link.0: intel_stop_bus: cannot stop clock: -110

Fix

Built snd-soc-sdca-class and snd-soc-sdca-class-function out-of-tree from the v7.0-rc6 kernel source and installed them:

# Download the two source files
curl -sLf "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/sound/soc/sdca/sdca_class.c?h=v7.0-rc6" -o sdca_class.c
curl -sLf "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/sound/soc/sdca/sdca_class_function.c?h=v7.0-rc6" -o sdca_class_function.c

# Kbuild
cat > Kbuild << 'EOF'
obj-m += snd-soc-sdca-class.o
snd-soc-sdca-class-y := sdca_class.o
obj-m += snd-soc-sdca-class-function.o
snd-soc-sdca-class-function-y := sdca_class_function.o
EOF

# Build, install, reboot
make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$(pwd) modules
zstd snd-soc-sdca-class.ko -o /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/sound/soc/sdca/snd-soc-sdca-class.ko.zst
zstd snd-soc-sdca-class-function.ko -o /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/sound/soc/sdca/snd-soc-sdca-class-function.ko.zst
depmod -a
reboot

Result

Fully working — speakers, headphones, HDMI/DP, and microphone:

$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [sofsoundwire   ]: sof-soundwire - sof-soundwire
                      DellInc.-XPS16DA16260-0H2HX9

$ wpctl status
 ├─ Sinks:
 │      83. sof-soundwire HDMI / DisplayPort 3 Output
 │      84. sof-soundwire HDMI / DisplayPort 2 Output
 │      85. sof-soundwire HDMI / DisplayPort 1 Output
 │      86. sof-soundwire Headphones
 │  *   87. sof-soundwire Speaker
 ├─ Sources:
 │  *   88. sof-soundwire Microphones

Summary

This is not an upstream kernel or firmware bug. The upstream kernel has full support for this hardware (Dell XPS 16 2026, subsystem 10280dba, CS42L45 + CS35L57). The issue is that the AUR linux-mainline PKGBUILD config is missing CONFIG_SND_SOC_SDCA_CLASS=m. This will affect anyone with SDCA-based audio on a prebuilt or AUR-built mainline kernel.