Lucid: pulseaudio causes many wakeups while playing music

[Martin Reiche]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

While playing music in rhythmbox or totem pulseaudio causes many CPU-wakeups as can be seen with powertop. When rhythmbox is on but not playing any music the CPU-wakeups are much lower.

I will attach the output from 'powertop -d' while
- rhythmbox playing music (playing)
- rhythmbox not playing music but loaded (idle)

As I can't remember ever seen such behavior in previous versions of Ubuntu I think this is a bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: mreiche 1392 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'I82801DBICH4'/'Intel 82801DB-ICH4 with AD1981B at irq 11'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981B'
   Components : 'AC97a:41445374'
   Controls : 26
   Simple ctrls : 18
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 1QHT23WW-1.08'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 1QHT23WW-1.08'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 2
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 14
   Mono: Playback 8 [57%] [on]
Date: Mon May 3 00:05:52 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
dmi.bios.date: 09/22/2005
dmi.bios.vendor: IBM
dmi.bios.version: 1QET97WW (3.02 )
dmi.board.name: 2672CXG
dmi.board.vendor: IBM
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: IBM
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1QET97WW(3.02):bd09/22/2005:svnIBM:pn2672CXG:pvrThinkPadX31:rvnIBM:rn2672CXG:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2672CXG
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X31
dmi.sys.vendor: IBM

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

This symptom should be largely fixed in the latest alsa drivers;
please try linux-alsa-driver-modules-$(uname -r) from
ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev. (Make sure you're using the release kernel and
not -proposed's.)

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

Does not help. Tried it with kernel 2.6.32-22-generic + linux-alsa-driver-modules from the mentioned ppa.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Can you reproduce this symptom with today's (or newer) snapshot of linux-alsa-driver-modules?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I installed linux-backports-modules-alsa-lucid-generic and powertop reports 32,7 wakeups now when playing some music with rhythmbox. So it is better. Don't know if it was better in previous versions.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Thanks, marking fixed as per last comment.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Further to comment #6, closing as fixed.