desperate to find a fix for ALC298

[n c]

Kernel: linux5.6 (source here
<https://github.com/torvalds/linux/releases/tag/v5.6>)
Distro: Tried most for months since linux5.4 (currently on manjaro)
Desktop: gnome
Alsa-info: (pastebin here <https://pastebin.com/w35JGdGu>)
Any configs: No just the defaults (no alsa/.asound, pulse/client.conf
etc...)
Cards: Single on-board Realtek ALC298

*Issue*
On-board sound does not work at all. Neither on speakers or headphones, no
matter which distro or kernel I tried (since 5.4+ of course).

*Have I asked the community?*
I have a SO question here
<https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/579486/alsa-pulseaudio-and-intel-hda-pch-with-no-sound>
and a manjaro topic here
<https://forum.manjaro.org/t/alsa-pulseaudio-and-intel-hda-pch-with-no-sound>
.

*Have I tried fixing it myself?*
Yes, a lot. The threads above both have a lot of information in them.
Highlight of my debugging so far is that the codec pin "0x1a" has an
incorrect VREF assigned to it (HIZ). Found this by accident when using
hda-analyzer. Changing it to VREF 50, 80 or 100 fixes the headphones. Have
no idea how to persist it using init_verbs (don't know how to package the
new value 0x05), so wrote a systemd file to hack it using hda-verb utility
at startup. It stopped working eventually or sometimes had to stop/restart
the service to reissue the change. I read somewhere that the incorrect VREF
is a sign of UEFI/BIOS chip assigning incorrect speaker pins. Although I
could not get the speakers working at all using any utilities mentioned
above.

Thank you for reading,