popping sound at 10s intervals when on battery power

[Reiner]

This appears to be an old bug in kernel module snd_hda_intel (see /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/powersave.txt and http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/388736-strange-pop-click-sound-speakers-every-time.html). Strangely however, I only observed this after upgrading to Precise AND installation of a new battery in my T61p Thinkpad. In any case, turning off Intel audio power saving works around the problem:
In /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/intel-audio-powersave
change the line
INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE=${INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE:-true}
to
INTEL_AUDIO_POWERSAVE=false

I am only filing this bug report since finding the workaround for specifically Precise (and other recent Ubuntu distros) required a bit of time (to put 2 and 2 together). Hope others won't have to spend the time now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Zdenko Janov (zdendo)]

I have same problem - but I have NO SOUND if my HP ProBook 4510s is on the batteries. This was fix problem, THANK YOU Reiner ;-)

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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