I think I am running into some sort of hardware limitation here. Hoping someone can confirm or help me troubleshoot.
I have an Acer Travelmate 215-52 laptop connected via the USB-C connector with a Dell WD19TB docking station. The external monitor is connected to the dock via DisplayPort. EndeavourOS with Plasma on Wayland.
This setup works fine for video, but the speakers in the external monitor are not detected and I cannot play sound through the monitor speakers. Sounds works via the laptop speakers or headphones.
Previously I had a Dell XPS 7390 with Manjaro connected to the dock and that worked flawlessly for audio and video. When I connect my employer’s HP laptop with Windows 10 to the dock, audio also works.
The Acer laptop does not support Thunderbolt: it has USB 3.1 Gen 1 USB-C connector that supports DisplayPort over USB-C. (The Dell XPS did support Thunderbolt and I suppose so does the work HP laptop.)
However, according to information I can find, DisplayPort over USB-C does actually support audio as well.
I tried switching out the DP cable between the monitor and the dock for a HDMI cable: video works, audio does not.
There is a USB audio sink detected, but that goes to the headphone jack on the dock and my monitor does not have a separate audio input.
So now I am wondering… am I running into some sort of hardware limitation or incompatibility, or can I fix something in device detection, or is maybe Wayland or KDE the source of the problem.
Inxi output is here: https://0x0.st/8Nil.txt
lsusb output is here: https://0x0.st/8NiU.txt
pactl output is here: https://0x0.st/8Nin.txt