[Thinkpad T60] Kubuntu - intermittent distorted sound

[Mlt]

I have a lenovo T60 thinkpad with the following card [2007FVG, Analog Devices AD1981, Red Mic, Left] the sound was fine previously, but on reinstalling Natty it now sounds terrible.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: alsa-base 1.0.24+dfsg-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
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: michael 1537 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xee400000 irq 48'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981'
   Components : 'HDA:11d41981,17aa2025,00100200'
   Controls : 20
   Simple ctrls : 11
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 79HT50WW-1.07'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 79HT50WW-1.07'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 2
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 14
   Mono: Playback 11 [79%] [on]
Date: Sat Apr 16 21:06:35 2011
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110413)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Symptom_Card: Internal Audio - HDA Intel
Symptom_Jack: Red Mic, Left
Symptom_Type: Volume slider, or mixer problems
Title: [2007FVG, Analog Devices AD1981, Red Mic, Left] volume slider problem
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 04/12/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 79ETD2WW (2.12 )
dmi.board.name: 2007FVG
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr79ETD2WW(2.12):bd04/12/2007:svnLENOVO:pn2007FVG:pvrThinkPadT60:rvnLENOVO:rn2007FVG:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2007FVG
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T60
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Hi Mlt,
Could you please describe (or add a wave file) in what way the audio is bad? High background noise? Digital clip? Choppy?

[Michael Truscott (mltruscott)]

Hi,

It sounds as if it is being played on a radio with a broken speaker - notes are blurred and distorted, and there is almost white noise. also oddly, there is a time signature problem, a track will speed up and slow down, and it seems that this depends on other processes that are being carried out. I have tried headphones and it is as bad on them as the internal speakers on my laptop. Previously on 10.10 the sound had been fine.

Details of my sound device:

 *-multimedia
             description: Audio device
             product: N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1b
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
             version: 02
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0
             resources: irq:46 memory:ee400000-ee403fff

thanks,

Michael

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Monday 18 Apr 2011 12:23:25 you wrote:

   Hi Mlt,
   Could you please describe (or add a wave file) in what way the audio is bad? High background noise? Digital clip? Choppy?

   ** Changed in: alsa-driver (Ubuntu)
          Status: New => Incomplete

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Hmm, this is nothing I've heard about before and I don't really know how to attack the problem, but we should try to figure out where in the chain it appears.
You don't have too high volume somewhere causing digital distortion?
Is the problem present is you try another sound card (e g USB headphones if you have any)?

If you run
pasuspender -- speaker-test -c 2 -t sine -D plughw:0

...is the sound still broken?

[Michael Truscott (mltruscott)]

I tried the command below and there is a nice clean tone broken up intermittently by interference like noise about 1/4 - 1/2 a second long.

I tried all the volume controls and they didn't change distortion.

I have just tried this with the latest SUSE live CD and that also has distortion.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Tuesday 19 Apr 2011 08:19:32 you wrote:

   Hmm, this is nothing I've heard about before and I don't really know how to attack the problem, but we should try to figure out where in the chain it appears.
   You don't have too high volume somewhere causing digital distortion?
   Is the problem present is you try another sound card (e g USB headphones if you have any)?

   If you run
   pasuspender -- speaker-test -c 2 -t sine -D plughw:0

   ...is the sound still broken?

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Ok; I'm out of ideas at the moment, and I'm not excluding a hardware fault on your computer, but if you can figure out more information about how or when it appears, or what causes it to appear, that is likely to be helpful in tracing this bug down.

[Michael Truscott (mltruscott)]

I'll double check the hardware and get back to you.

Michael
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Wednesday 20 Apr 2011 07:23:49 you wrote:

   Ok; I'm out of ideas at the moment, and I'm not excluding a hardware
   fault on your computer, but if you can figure out more information about
   how or when it appears, or what causes it to appear, that is likely to
   be helpful in tracing this bug down.

[Michael Truscott (mltruscott)]

Having spent the day fiddling, an update on this.

This is not a hardware fault as an install of 10.10 works fine (with gnome and kde)

I updated to 11.04 and the problem came back in KDE, I'm not able to log into unity or gnome so I can't test whether it works outside of KDE!

I tried xine and gstreamer but had the problem in both.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Friday 22 April 2011 08:45:03 you wrote:

   I'll double check the hardware and get back to you.

   Michael
   _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

   On Wednesday 20 Apr 2011 07:23:49 you wrote:

      Ok; I'm out of ideas at the moment, and I'm not excluding a hardware
      fault on your computer, but if you can figure out more information about
      how or when it appears, or what causes it to appear, that is likely to
      be helpful in tracing this bug down.

[Mlt (mlt)]

Having spent the day fiddling, an update on this.

This is not a hardware fault as an install of 10.10 works fine (with
gnome and kde)

I updated to 11.04 and the problem came back in KDE, however in Unity and lubuntu the sound is fine. I tried xine and gstreamer but have had the problem in both.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Monday 18 April 2011 12:23:25 you wrote:

   Hi Mlt,
   Could you please describe (or add a wave file) in what way the audio is bad? High background noise? Digital clip? Choppy?

   ** Changed in: alsa-driver (Ubuntu)
          Status: New => Incomplete

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Ok, thanks for the comments. If you're up for more time-consuming tasks, you could try bisecting - first thing to try if so would be to start off with Maverick, verify that it works fine, then install this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/InstallingLinuxAlsaDriverModules, reboot, and see if the problem has reappeared?

[Simon Huerlimann (huerlisi)]

Have the same problem here. This happened on both my two T60 Notebooks. It started out after updating them to Natty. One was running Lucid, the other one a Maverick before.

Have to validate, but I think dropping pulse-audio did fix it. Will follow up when I know more.

[Simon Huerlimann (huerlisi)]

The following did help:

sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils

I'm using Kubuntu/KDE. I've been asked if I'd like to remove a few sound devices right after the login. The following message was in the Notification log:

The audio playback device HDA Intel (AD198x Analog) does not work.
Falling back to HDA Intel (AD198x Analog).

[Mlt (mlt)]

Thanks for the suggestion -it certainly helps and reduces the occurences of distortion.

Having said that, launching REkonq to write this did cause some problems, so there seems to be a resources issue somehow?

[Mlt (mlt)]

further weirdness - if I switch off desktop effects, the sound is fine. Are these using resources in a different way than previously and is this intended?

[eaglegranlin (eaglegranlin)]

I have the very same problem on my Inspiron 6400, for some reason when i'm having some graphical charge i get that annoying distortion, even though my fps do not drop, as Mlt says when i switch off desktop effects the sound fixes

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

@Mlt, if you remove pulseaudio, you also remove the "mixing" functionality, that allows more than one application to have sound at a specific point in time.

[Mlt (mlt)]

@DavidH - true, but the problems with graphics, not sound and the problem is there with pulseaudio as well.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Aha, I thought you meant "system event sounds", but you actually mean switching from compiz to metacity?

[Mlt (mlt)]

Sorry, it only happens in KDE - gnome/unity, etc. is unaffected
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 13:59:31 you wrote:

   Aha, I thought you meant "system event sounds", but you actually mean
   switching from compiz to metacity?

[Mlt (mlt)]

This seems to have been solved know since I updated to KDE SC 4.6.3. There is no distortion, pulseaudio or not.

Thanks
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 13:59:31 you wrote:

   Aha, I thought you meant "system event sounds", but you actually mean
   switching from compiz to metacity?

[Mlt (mlt)]

And having just posted that it has come back,

sorry.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 13:59:31 you wrote:

   Aha, I thought you meant "system event sounds", but you actually mean
   switching from compiz to metacity?

[Mlt (mlt)]

Is there anyway of pushing this to KDE as it clear that this is where the problem is?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Rod (rpg81es)]

a solution please. it is hapening the same LenovoT60

[Stefan Bucher (buchers)]

This may be related/result: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/879790

[Jan Kouba (kouba-honza)]

This may be result of: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28106

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Mlt, could you please confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ . If the issue remains, could you please run the following command in the development release from a terminal, as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p alsa-driver 763065

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

seem no headphone , speaker pin complex

try

hda-jack-sense-test -a

plug and unplug the headphone ,dock line out mic or dock mic

Node 0x05 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400187: Stereo Amp-In Amp-Out
  Control: name="Master Playback Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0
  Control: name="Master Playback Switch", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x03, stepsize=0x27, mute=0
  Amp-In vals: [0x00 0x00]
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x3d, nsteps=0x3f, stepsize=0x05, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals: [0x3f 0x3f]
  Pincap 0x0001173f: IN OUT HP EAPD Detect Trigger ImpSense
    Vref caps: HIZ 50 GRD 80
  EAPD 0x0:
  Pin Default 0xc3014110: [Both] Line Out at Ext Left
    Conn = 1/8, Color = Green
    DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0x0
    Misc = NO_PRESENCE
  Pin-ctls: 0x40: OUT VREF_HIZ
  Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0
  Connection: 2
     0x03 0x0e*