Comment 16 for bug 381201

I have rounded up three other bugs which are duplicates of this. I have made the others duplicates because this has the lowest ID (I hope that is the appropriate method).

I also had this issue when testing Karmic Alpha 5. The popping was quite severe, which made me look into the problem as I was worried about damaging the speakers. Bernhard Gehl's comment about disabling the power saving has resolved the issue for me.

I also found this section on the archlinux alsa wiki, which ties up exctly with this issue:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA#Pops_when_Starting_and_Stopping_Playback.3F

[quote]Some modules can power off your sound card when not in use. this can make an audible noise when powering down your sound card. If you find this annoying try "modinfo snd-MY-MODULE", and look for a module option that adjusts or disables this feature. for example: to disable the power saving mode using snd-hda-intel add "options snd-hda-intel power_save=0" in /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf. or try it with "modprobe snd-hda-intel power_save=0"[/quote]