[solved] Problems with sound card: cracking noise

Message

Braempje · Post by **Braempje** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:56 pm

Since a while, every time a program that wants to access the audio card, including KDE, causes a short, cracking noise to come from my speakers. It does not seem healthy and it's very annoying, how can I resolve this?
I'll be more than happy to give any data you need, I do not know where to start... My system is an almost stable, up to date x86.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:06 pm

Braempje,

Tell us about your motherboard and sound card and show us your lspci output.

Meanwhile, add no-hlt to your kernel line in grub.conf. Does that make a difference ?

bastibasti · Post by **bastibasti** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:52 pm

Just a guess: Maybe you have neable the power saving feature for AC'97 cards?

Braempje · Post by **Braempje** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:55 pm

I'm seeing this on my Dell Inspiron 9300. I do not know the exact brand of my motherboard but its' the 2Ghz Pentium M configuration.
The soundcard is an on board AC 97 chipset, which is clear from the lspci output:

Code: Select all

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV41.8 [GeForce Go 6800] (rev a2)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3)
03:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08)
03:01.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 17)
03:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)

I'll try the no-hlt option and report back, thanks for your fast reply!

Braempje · Post by **Braempje** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:56 pm

bastibasti wrote:Just a guess: Maybe you have neable the power saving feature for AC'97 cards?

That's true, I have enableded that option. Is that a problem? Can I disable it at runtime to test the difference?

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:15 pm

Braempje,

If its a loadable module, you can modprobe -r it.
As you are on a laptop, do not use no-hlt if you need good battery life. It prevents the CPU using low poer modes when there is nothing to do.
It affects sound as it removes the CPU mode switching voltage spikes from the power supply, which are often picked up by the on board sound.

Braempje · Post by **Braempje** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:40 am

Removing that option from my kernel solved this problem, thanks for your help!