Noise while playing sounds with Intel High Definition Audio

Barabas2005

Good evening all,

During playback of music (mp3/flac) or sounds (gnome sound themes) I experience a large amount of loud crackling noise from my notebook speakers. So far I was unable to fix this and I haven't found much about this problem in the forum or on the net also.

My sound card is an Intel High Definition Audio Controller on a Promedion (Clevo) D900T notebook. Lspci gives me the following details about the controller:

pianosaurus · l33t Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 943 Location: Bash$

It sounds like a driver problem. The drivers you are using now, are they exact maches for your sound card, or just close? The only thing I can think of is buggy driver or incorrect driver.
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pops45042 · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 3:40 am Post subject:

I've got the same problem here, same sound hardware too.

Paul
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Barabas2005 · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:56 am Post subject:

In Windows XP I have to use drivers from Realtek for this soundcard. These drivers work fine.

They also have Linux drivers on their site (www.realtek.co.tw). Those drivers seem to be based on Alsa 1.0.4 (I'm using 1.0.9-r2 now). I tried to install those on my system, but I get many compile errors. During the compile I did see the drivers are named snd-azx.

When I emerge the Alsa 1.0.9 drivers with ALSA_CARDS="snd-azx" in my make.conf file, is says it can't find those drivers (that's why I think the driver is renamed from azx to hda-intel).

One other thing I noticed is that the snd-azx and the snd-hda-intel drivers don't appear in the Alsa sound card matrix.

I'm afraid I just must wait for the drivers to mature (unless somebody has a solution for the noise :wink:

). Till sofar I will have to play my music in Windows

.

Thanks,

Barabas

Barabas2005 · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:11 am Post subject:

Found out some more about this problem. Or better said, the problem gets a bit more complicated

:

When using the ESound plugin for XMMS the sound is cristal clear (????). Using aRts, Gstreamer or aKode plugin (or "engine") in Amarok however gives no improvement at all (the sound is just as crackely).

What is ESound doing with Alsa? Why is only this engine capable of giving me clear sound on the above mentioned sound-card.

Oh well, for now I can play my music in XMMS. But I would sooo much like to have clear sounds in mplayer, amarok and games too :cry:

.

So any help is much appreciated

,

Barabas

Crapo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 Nov 2004 Posts: 110

Did you try lowering the PCM level ? I was also having crackling noise problems until I reduced the PCM to approx 75%. Since, the sound is very good.
Hope this helps.

eean · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:53 pm Post subject:

ALSA is a mess. How is a user supposed to figure out the correct level settings without trial and error.

pops45042 · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 7:16 pm Post subject:

Well, Alsa is definitley a work in progress like most linux things are. Given time, they will get better. On my main rig, its also running gentoo, but it has a soundblast audigy and with ALSA and the PCM level about 75% the sound quality is on par or better than windows. To put it simply, the sound on my SB audigy kicks ass under ALSA on my 5.1

Much of the quality of sound you get depends on your particular sound hardware driver. Like my laptop with Intel's crappy AC97 audio really does suck. It currently sounds just as good as windows when playing sound or movie files with xmms, but I fire up doom3 on it (its got a GF 6600 128MB ;p) the sound is crackily. That seems to be an issue with the driver only supporting 44.1Khz and doom3 trying to output 48khz sound... I think. But my laptop sound under ALSA just isn't on par with windows...but the windows sound kinda lacks too...but then again, its just a laptop!

Paul
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Barabas2005 · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:53 pm Post subject:

For me Alsa is working great on my desktop with Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy (I). Alsa also worked perfectly on my older notebooks with Intel AC97 (Intel8x0). This new notebook with the new AC97 (hda-intel) is the first one which has problems with Alsa.

Barabas

pops45042 · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 1:12 am Post subject:

Well, if you have used the same alsa driver before and it sounded fine, then it makes me wonder if the onboard audio packaged with our laptops curtosy of intel is crap this time around. Either that, or the ALSA driver isn't quite up to par yet for our newer hardware. I'm voting on sucky sound hardware myself.

Paul
_________________
"That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable"

Laugh at my old system!
AMD Opteron 165@ 2750Mhz, 2gig 400mhz Cas2 Crucial Ballistix, Abit NF8 Ultra MB, WD 80gig (system), WD 120gig (storage), Geforce 8800GTS 320MB, Mushkin 550W PS

ageheim · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 22 Location: Sweden

I found a solution to my problem with Intel High Definition Audio using cmi9880 codec.

This is a cutout from http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-284404-highlight-sbin+alsactl.html

Essentially, it describes a means to force install a file for the Azalia drivers.

http://weintraub.homeip.net/driver_audio_azalia_linux.tar.bz2

Do the following:

Code:

# cd ~/
# mkdir sound
# cd sound
# wget http://weintraub.homeip.net/driver_audio_azalia_linux.tar.bz2
# tar -xvjpf driver_audio_azalia_linux.tar.bz2
# ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -f alsa-driver
# cd azx-alsa-drop-driver-1.1.2a
# cp /usr/portage/distfiles/alsa-driver-1.0.X.tar.bz2 .
# tar -xvjpf alsa-driver-1.0.X.tar.bz2 (where X is your version of alsa-driver)
# ln -s alsa-driver-1.0.X/ alsa-driver
# ./build.sh
# ./build.sh install

Then, modify the /etc/modules.d/alsa to look like the following
Code:

# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v 1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $

# ALSA portion
# OSS/Free portion

##
## IMPORTANT:
## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
## and then run `update-modules' command.
## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
##
## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-azx
## OSS/Free portion
##alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1
## OSS/Free portion - card #2
## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

Run Code:
modules-update

Then
Code:
/etc/init.d/alsasound restart

This worked for me, though I had to download alsa-drivers manually ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.8.tar.bz2

I can't adjust volume for pcm but at least the sound is working once the PCM is unmuted.
The only problem now is that I only can play sounds/music as root, if I try to play as another user I get an error message that says something about permission denied in alsa_cntl (hmmm...not sure of the name

).

Has any of you any suggestion?

Thanks

/AGE

pianosaurus · l33t Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 943 Location: Bash$

ageheim · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 22 Location: Sweden

But of course!
Now i feel a little bit ashamed :oops:

running 'usermod -G sound <username>' did the trick!

Thanks Cuber!

pianosaurus · l33t Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 943 Location: Bash$

No problem.
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hongkongblue2 · Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:44 am Post subject: Re: Tip on snd-azx (Solved)

Ageheim said ...

# cd ~/
# mkdir sound
# cd sound
# wget http://weintraub.homeip.net/driver_audio_azalia_linux.tar.bz2
# tar -xvjpf driver_audio_azalia_linux.tar.bz2
# ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -f alsa-driver
# cd azx-alsa-drop-driver-1.1.2a
# cp /usr/portage/distfiles/alsa-driver-1.0.X.tar.bz2 .
# tar -xvjpf alsa-driver-1.0.X.tar.bz2 (where X is your version of alsa-driver)
# ln -s alsa-driver-1.0.X/ alsa-driver
# ./build.sh
# ./build.sh install

This works well with OSS emulation and the alsa-driver-1.0.8. PCM control seems to be missing/borked in the snd-hda-intel/snd-azx modules, but at least you get clear sound on Front, Headphone, Surround controls. Thanks for the tip!
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