[HDA-Intel - HDA Intel, playback] Sound is distorted

[Tory]

Here is a sample of the audio problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQISYFiJnU0

The application is irrelevant, I first observed this issue while watching some flash video, but here I have observed it while watching video in VLC.

Audio mostly works, this only seems to happen sometimes, it seems to happen when my computer is under heavy load. In this particular time I was also running virtual box.

To fix this, I am able to simply restart the application.

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 x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: freyja 1820 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: freyja 1820 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd6960000 irq 44'
   Mixer name : 'Intel IbexPeak HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:111d76d5,1028040a,00100104 HDA:80862804,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 19
   Simple ctrls : 11
Date: Fri Jun 10 00:43:29 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Symptom_AlsaPlaybackTest: ALSA playback test through plughw:Intel failed
Symptom_Card: Internal Audio - HDA Intel
Symptom_Type: Digital clip or distortion, or "overdriven" sound
Title: [HDA-Intel - HDA Intel, playback] Sound is distorted
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 07/08/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A04
dmi.board.name: 0667CC
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A01
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA04:bd07/08/2010:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6410:pvr0001:rvnDellInc.:rn0667CC:rvrA01:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E6410
dmi.product.version: 0001
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Tory (tory-andrew-law)]

This just happened again as I was booting a Windows XP Virtualbox machine. It begun when the boot up Microsoft sound played. That is, the music I was listening to became distorted when the first sound from my Virtualbox machine played.

The music I was listening to was coming from a flash application in Firefox.

[John Felso (felso)]

I experience same problem regularly. It does only happen when I'm using VirtualBox, but, I'm almost always using VirtualBox, and, my machine in only under heavy load when VirtualBox is running.

[Berend Dekens (cyberwizzard)]

I have the same issue, regularly.

It seems to happen under heavy load but I do not use VirtualBox: in my case its the Xilinx tools during synthesis which seem to destroy the audio output when the memory fills up (probably while its swapping).

Restarting the audio player usually fixes it.

Sound card:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)

Driver:
snd_hda_intel

Ubuntu:
11.04 with all patches installed

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[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.]