choppy sound, /var/log/message full of 'kernel: ... hp_event' at same time

[Steve McInerney]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

Turn the Master channel right up, get *very* choppy sound, and the messages log fills with "hp_event" entries.

Oct 23 20:17:47 dogmatix kernel: [46674.836219] hp_event
Oct 23 20:17:47 dogmatix kernel: [46674.857553] hp_event
Oct 23 20:17:47 dogmatix kernel: [46674.921553] hp_event
...

Is a Dell Inspiron 530 with a Realtek ALC888 sound doohicky.

With master sound down lower and hence no chop, get an appalling amount of hiss. Using headphones is a no go zone - just horrible to the ears.

I'm assuming is in pulseaudio. Happy to be incorrect.

Machine is uptodate and rebooted with all latest bits as at 23/Oct/2008.
lsb_release -rd:
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10

pulseaudio 0.9.10-2ubuntu9

[Steve McInerney (spm)]

Still have the hiss and static problems with the final release of Intrepid.
* Did a complete wipe of *all* Gnome/KDE settings (via a home directory move) - just in case something funky going on. No change.
* Brand new user on the same machine - no change.
* Don't have to play anything to get the hiss - just turn the volume settings up and arrive at hiss central. Sadly when playing any tunes, the background hiss is still very noticeable.
* Likewise with the static popping.

Have managed to work around the horrible hiss with headphones[1]:
* kill the running pulseaudio processes
* change Sound Preferences to use 'ALSA' for everything, except for Default Mixer Tracks - which uses 'HDA Intel (Alsa mixer)
* disable the pulseaudio startup in Sessions Preferences

[1] I'd assume exists with the speakers - just not turned up loud enough to discover - but is very noticeable with noise cancelling headphones.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom still reproducible in 9.04 (http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/)?

[Steve McInerney (spm)]

Technically, no.

But that's because sound doesn't work at all. :-/

[Tim Riker (timriker)]

Unloading and reloading the snd_hda_intel module sometimes clears this.

stopping and restarting all sound applications sometimes clears this without having to unload/reload the module. A ctrl-alt-backspace in X and relogin sometime fixes it.

Note: I see this with Debian unstable as well on 2.6.26-1-686

I expect the so-called 6-drive kernel module is not handling some input/output port detection correctly on init.

I have stereo speakers connected to the back of the computer and other audio port are unused at present.

[Nikolaus Rath (nikratio)]

Confirming no sound at all and hp_event messages every second with current Ubuntu Jaunty.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.