Regression: frequent popping sound with light indicating that sound is supposed to be muted

[Gijutsu]

With Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic a "popping" sound is quite frequent on my HP NX7400 along with a short indication by the onboard led that sound is supposed to be muted. This is a regression from Jaunty, where this problem did not occur.

This bug is triggered while using most applications, but can be reproduced especially reliable by:
1. Opening the terminal
2. Pressing tab

No indications to the source of this error is reported in the log files while reproducing the bug.
If an audio file is played while trying to reproduce the bug as described above, no indication of the bug is seen.

ProblemType: Bug
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: none 1907 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf4580000 irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981'
   Components : 'HDA:11d41981,103c30a2,00100200 HDA:11c11040,103c1378,00100200'
   Controls : 11
   Simple ctrls : 9
Date: Sun Oct 4 20:08:13 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq nx7400 (RH399EA#AK8)
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-11-generic 2.6.31-11.38
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.31-11-generic root=/dev/mapper/volumegroup-root ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.38-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-11-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.20
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-generic i686
dmi.bios.date: 04/18/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68YGU Ver. F.0B
dmi.board.name: 30A2
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 40.17
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNU639069R
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68YGUVer.F.0B:bd04/18/2007:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaqnx7400(RH399EA#AK8):pvrF.0B:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30A2:rvrKBCVersion40.17:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq nx7400 (RH399EA#AK8)
dmi.product.version: F.0B
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Stefan Bader (smb)]

I wonder whether it might be something related to sound power saving... I noticed there has been a change in the latest updates adding a "powersave_controller=N" into /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. So first thing would be to see whether the bug is still reproducible with the latest updates (with that controller line in). If it is still there, try changing the powersave value in that file from 10 to 0 (disable powersaving). Then reboot and check the sound again. If it is gone then, we know at least it is related to that.

[Martin Gamache (martin-gamache)]

I confirm your solution works, Stefan, on my HP DV2620CA with an Nvidia Sound card. I had a similar problem, although without any indication from the computer leds.

This seems to be related to bugs 383385 and maybe 444385

[Stuart Johnson (jstuart-johnson)]

I am experiencing a similar issue, which is a regression that started after an update on Monday (Oct 12) night. I started hearing loud popping noises from the speakers, perhaps 30 seconds apart.

After reading this bug (and 383385, 444385) I found I was able to reproduce the pop by opening the sound preferences dialog, and waiting for at least 10 seconds before clicking on "Mute" or "Enable window and button sounds" (didn't matter which and didn't matter if I was checking or unchecking the box).

The longer I waited, the louder the popping sound.

Editing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, changing the line

options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N

to read

options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N

and rebooting appears to have fixed the issue for me. I'm not hearing the pops and I can't trigger them with the sound preference dialog.

[Gijutsu (gijutsu)]

Thank you Stefan Bader and Stuart Johnson! I followed your advise and furthermore did a complete reinstall of my test install of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic. What you described seemed indeed to be the problem, because if I change power_save in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf to 0 the bug is not occurring any more.

[Richard Jonsson (richard-jonsson-bredband)]

I notice that original bug reporter has HP with HDA Intel sound. Coincidentally, so do I.

Do all of you have "HDA Intel" hardware?
Do all of you have a HP/Compaq computer?

To me this looks like a solid kernel driver/hardware issue. IMHO it should be investigated if a driver fix is possible. If it "only" affects HP users it might be a solution to disable powersaving of audio for these systems...

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

That's too broad a stroke. It really depends on the specific HDA codec
and revision. Karmic currently carries a patch that resolves this
symptom for IDT and Sigmatel HDA codecs, so we really should "only" be
hearing this symptom on non-IDT and non-Sigmatel HDAs...

[gozdal (gozdal)]

The bug affects me also. lspci attached.

[TylerJ (gotylergo)]

this is happening on my hp dv2710us. started after my upgrade (clean install) of 9.10.

[MarisJ (n105m15)]

This bug affects me too, only I have an audigy 2 using the snd_emu10k1 driver, which unfortunately has no power saving options to pass on during modprobe. Any suggestions to fix it? I didn't experience these problems before upgrading to 9.10.

[Daniel Ellis (danellisuk)]

I have marked this as a duplicate of #381201. I chose to mark this as the duplicate because the other bug was reported earlier, and also has more duplicates. Hope this was okay.