topology: HP OMEN Transcend 14 (8E41) - Missing support for Link 1 (Headset) + Link 3 (Amp)

[danielsamuels]

Describe the bug
Sound card fails to initialize on HP OMEN Transcend 14 (Board ID: 8E41) due to a topology mismatch regarding SoundWire link assignments.
The kernel defaults to requesting sof-arl-rt711-l0-2ch.tplg, assuming the headset (RT711-SDCA) is on Link 0. However, acpidump confirms that on this specific board, the Headset is wired to Link 1, and the Amplifiers (RT1316) are on Link 3.

Diagnosis Attempts:

1. Default boot results in empty /sys/bus/sdw/devices/.
2. Forcing snd_intel_sdw_acpi.sdw_link_mask=10 (Links 1 & 3) successfully wakes the RT1316 amplifiers (visible in dmesg as mfg_id 0x025d).
3. However, card registration still fails with error -22 (Invalid Argument) because the available topologies (e.g., sof-mtl-rt711-l0-rt1316-l3) hard-code the headset to Link 0. When the topology tries to initialize Link 0, it fails, aborting the sound card creation.
4. No public topology file exists for rt711-l1 + rt1316-l3.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Boot Linux Kernel 6.14.0-37-generic on HP OMEN Transcend 14 (DMI Board: 8E41).
2. Observe standard boot fails to populate /sys/bus/sdw/devices/.
3. Add kernel parameter snd_intel_sdw_acpi.sdw_link_mask=10 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
4. Reboot.
5. Check dmesg: Link 3 (Amps) is detected, but probing fails when the driver attempts to bind the generic Link 0 topology.

Reproduction Rate
100% (All the time).

Expected behavior
The SOF driver should detect the unique l1-l3 wiring of this board and load a compatible topology (e.g., sof-mtl-rt711-l1-rt1316-l3-4ch.tplg), allowing the sound card to register.

Impact
Showstopper. No audio input or output is available.

Environment

1. Branch name and commit hash of the 2 repositories: sof (firmware/topology) and linux (kernel driver).
   • Kernel: 6.14.0-37-generic (Ubuntu/Mint mainline)
   • SOF: v2.12.0.1 (Loaded firmware library: ADSPFW, version: 2.12.0.1)
2. Name of the topology file
   • Topology (Requested by Kernel): sof-arl-rt711-l0-2ch.tplg
   • Topology (Actual Need): sof-mtl-rt711-l1-rt1316-l3-4ch.tplg
3. Name of the platform(s) on which the bug is observed.
   • Platform: Intel Arrow Lake (ARL) / Meteor Lake (MTL)
   • Hardware: HP OMEN Transcend Gaming Laptop 14-fb1xxx (DMI: 8E41)

Screenshots or console output

Evidence 1: ACPI Tables confirming Link 1 and Link 3 usage

   169B0: 69 2D 73 64 77 2D 6C 69 6E 6B 2D 31 2D 73 75 62  i-sdw-link-1-sub
   16A00: 69 2D 73 64 77 2D 6C 69 6E 6B 2D 33 2D 73 75 62  i-sdw-link-3-sub

Evidence 2: Successful wake of RT1316 on Link 3 using mask=10

[    2.851529] sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl 0000:00:1f.3: link 3 mfg_id 0x025d part_id 0x1316 version 0x3
[    2.851544] sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl 0000:00:1f.3: BT link detected in NHLT tables: 0x4

Evidence 3: Topology Failure due to missing Link 0 (Headset)

[    3.172699] sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl 0000:00:1f.3: error: can't connect DAI alh-copier.SDW3-Playback.0 stream SDW3-Playback
[    3.172732] sof_sdw sof_sdw: ASoC: failed to instantiate card -22
[    3.172800] sof_sdw sof_sdw: error -EINVAL: snd_soc_register_card failed -22

AI Disclaimer

I am new to using Linux on the desktop, so I have used Gemini 3 Pro to help debug and resolve this issue. It/we were ultimately unsuccessful, so it put this bug report together for me to submit. I am very happy to continue debugging this issue and providing any further information as requested to help get my audio working.

alsa-info.txt
dmesg.txt

[danielsamuels]

Fedora 43 (Kernel 6.17.1) reveals that the Intel Arrow Lake-H Audio Controller on this machine uses PCI ID 8086:7728.

Currently, this ID is not claimed by any driver:
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7728]

I have attached the alsa-info and dmesg from the Fedora 43 environment for reference.

alsa-info.txt

dmesg.txt

[danielsamuels]

I've just loaded Bazzite (Kernel 6.18.6-200.fc43.x86_64) on a live USB and the 8086:7728 controller is correctly bound to sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl, and it is successfully loading the sof-arl-rt711-l0-rt1316-l3-2ch.tplg topology.

It appears the current kernel/firmware stack handles the Link 1 + Link 3 mapping on this device (HP 8E41) correctly without further quirks.