Impossible to change Volume

Distribution

Current 7/3/25

Package version

Current 7/3/25

Graphics hardware in use

NVIDIA GeForce RTC 3050 Mobile

Frequency

Always

Bug description

I'm using an ASUS Zenbook Pro 17, which has some fancy built-in speakers. The results of inxi -A are:
Audio:
Device-1: AMD Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda _intel
Device-2: AMD ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor driver: snd_pci_acpox
Device-3: AMD Family 17h/19h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
API: ALSA v: k6.14.0-1006-oem status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active
Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: active

No matter what I do, the Volume sliders do not affect the volume level AT ALL. This is a completely fresh installation of Linux Mint downloaded 2 days ago. I ran the Update Manager and installed anything available, and the issue persists.

The Volume is either muted or at full volume. No matter where on the slider you click between 0% and 100%, the volume of audio playback does not change at all.

Steps to reproduce

-Attempt to change volume
-Spend 2 hours researching issue
-Report bug since no solution exists

Expected behavior

Playback volume changes when adjusted with Gnome's volume sliders.

Additional information

No response

Start by reproducing the volume-slider behavior on the reported ASUS Zenbook Pro 17 with the listed PipeWire, PulseAudio, and ALSA setup, then trace Cinnamon's volume control entry point. Compare slider changes with the system mixer and audio output, and consider the issue done when playback volume changes continuously rather than only switching between muted and full volume.