Popping sound occurring randomly and before other sounds on HDA Intel - Realtek ALC888

[Ron Houk]

Periodic popping sounds occuring randomly and before other sounds. Appears to be much like bug #440540. Suspect also being affected by power saving.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: rhouk 2606 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: rhouk 2606 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC1D0c: rhouk 2606 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf9ff8000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC888'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,102802ac,00100202'
   Controls : 35
   Simple ctrls : 20
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'Webcam'/'OmniVision Technologies, Inc.538-2640-08.04.23.2 Monitor Webcam at usb-0000:00:'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB05a9:264a'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 3
Date: Tue Oct 6 23:13:07 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: alsa-base 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu4
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-12.39-generic
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-12-generic x86_64

[Ron Houk (houk-ron)]

I was able to find a workaround for this bug by making the following changes to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

original:

# Power down HDA controllers after 10 idle seconds
options snd-hda-intel power_save=10

modified:

# Power down HDA controllers after 10 idle seconds
options snd-hda-intel power-save-controller=N
#options snd-hda-intel power_save=10

I have no idea if this is the right way of going about things, or if there is a better way. But, it did solve the issue for me.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Great, triaged. Thanks for the feedback. Please note that the workaround is already in place in the alsa-base and linux-sound-base packages that are in the ubuntu-audio-dev PPA.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package alsa-driver - 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5

---------------
alsa-driver (1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5) karmic; urgency=low

  * debian/rules: Don't reset the controller upon power-save
    (LP: #440540, #445135, #446987, #447602)

 -- Daniel T Chen <email address hidden> Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:00:58 -0400