[solved with workarround] speakers making a buzzing noise when computer is in "idle"

[Spindoctor]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

Hi!

I'm not exactly sure if this problem comes from pulseaudio or ALSA.

Fact is, that all my boxes "play" a silent but hearable buzzing noise everytime my computer is in "idle".

In this case, "idle" means that the noise is not playing when I play any real sound like an (empty) mp3. The sound also disappears when the processor is busy (for example the noise stops while I scroll websites), or while I have my audio settings open. When I used windows I didn't have this problem too.

My 5.1 speaker system is plugged in on the analogue jacks of my on-board sound.

Thanks for your help.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: marcel 3220 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'nForce2'/'NVidia nForce2 with ALC650F at irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC650F'
   Components : 'AC97a:414c4723'
   Controls : 50
   Simple ctrls : 33
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'UART'/'MPU-401 UART at 0x330, irq 10'
   Mixer name : ''
   Components : ''
   Controls : 0
   Simple ctrls : 0
Card1.Amixer.values:

CheckboxSubmission: 5965a706c9e38a66c9fcee1e7380a977
CheckboxSystem: 34179ae9d787c87b2b99043345f17cea
Date: Wed Jan 13 22:03:56 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_AT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686
mtime.conffile..etc.pulse.daemon.conf: 2010-01-09T02:17:42.904428

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

I just found this workarround on launchpad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/449672/comments/4

I commented out "load-module module-suspend-on-idle" in /etc/pulse/default.pa and /etc/pulse/system.pa and restarted alsa with "sudo alsa force-reload". Now the buzzing noise is gone, but I can't hear any sound on youtube no more (all other sound source I've tested by now is working) :( ...

Is there a possibility to get youtube playing sound again?

Thank you!

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

... seems like deleting my asound.conf solved the problem :)

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

So long story short, your audio is working the way it should now or are there problems remaining?

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

Thanks for answering this thread!
Well, I still have some problems with surround sound, but I didn't start tweaking around yet.

I hope my bug report was not just a waste of time for those who took the time to read it but also helps to improve audio support for others.

Thank you once more!

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

(just to make it clear: deleting the asound.conf removed the youtube-problem, the buzzing noise was there before I even knew what the asound.conf is for)

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

If you mute your system completely (e g with the gnome volume control), does the buzzing stop?

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

You could also try removing this line from /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N

The line can be found at the end of the file.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

@Luke: will that help an ac97 soundcard? I thought that was just for hda-based cards.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Right, that's only for cards driven by snd-hda-codec*.

OTOH, the issue here is that the combination of hard-coded
period-size, buffer-size, and sampling rate is suboptimal. Generally
plug: already knows how to surmise the optimal settings.

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 12:21 AM, David Henningsson
<email address hidden> wrote:
> @Luke: will that help an ac97 soundcard? I thought that was just for
> hda-based cards.

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

After commenting out "load-module module-suspend-on-idle" in /etc/pulse/default.pa and deleting my asound.conf (which contained old settings from the time I tried to get nvidia Soundstorm running) I don't have the problem with the buzzing noise no more. With stereo-sound now everything works fine.

I still have some issues when I switch to 5.1-sound. When I do this and play an MP3 for testing, the sound doesn't come from all speakers at the same time. Instead the sound switches from one speaker to the other which is very annoying. However, I didn't really try to solve this problem yet (If you have hints for me I will be glad however).

Anyway, concerning the bug/problem I had initially, I'm satisfied. Would it help to improve Linux/Ubuntu/ALSA/pulseaudio if I make any of the tests and changes you recommended? In this case, I would do it of course. Otherwise I would be very thankful for your help and even more thankful (if this is possible) if you have any hints for my 5.1-problem but would leave all settings concerning the buzzing noise as they are at the moment.

Thank you!

Spin

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this reproducible with the version in ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev?

[Spindoctor (m2m)]

Sorry, I didn't answer sooner.

I didn't test the newest version in the ppa yet. I'm afraid I won't be able to test it before Ubuntu 10.04 comes out...