Playback crackling (soundcard problem?)

[jpalfree]

I just installed Fedora Core 4 over Redhat 9. In Redhat the playback was clear and sounded good. not with Fedora. The upside is now I can record from "line in" which I couldn't do in RH (for some reason).

I've checked unused inputs that may be causing this problem but even with all inputs muted and even all unnecessary outputs muted I still get a crackling noise when i playback mp3 or wav (probably ogg too).

does anyone have any ideas?

[a thing]

If you use KDE, try running "kcmshell arts">Hardware then select a different audio device. If that doesn't work, try GNOME. If you use GNOME, try KDE.

[jpalfree]

i've tried all of those suggestions and every time the sound has a slight but annoying distortion to it. kde, gnome, no matter what audio device. it's really odd. any more ideas?

[Ethyriel]

Which sound card do you use? Try giving us the output of the lsmod command. Also, any more specifics you know which lsmod doesn't give.

I'm guessing here, but I think RH9 must have used OSS/Free and I'm sure FC4 must use Alsa. It's quite possible that Alsa doesn't yet support your card as well as OSS, and if this is the case there are two things you can do. First, you should submit a bug report to Alsa (or with Fedora, and they'll submit to Alsa if necessary). Then you can install OSS temporarily, if you can't get around the issues. OSS/Free is deprecated, but the proprietary version is as good as free now (beer, not nirvana). You can get it from opensound.com, but you'll probably need to recompile your kernel with absolutely no sound support built in.

That's worst case, if nobody else can help you. I don't know jack about Fedora/Gnome/KDE.
Maybe try muting all the channels you aren't using in alsamixer, to reduce interference. And try playing some mp3's with mpg321/mpg123 or ogg's with ogg123 from a pure console without X running, to rule resources out.

g'luck

[Ethyriel]

In that first sentence I meant to say lspci, but lsmod and lspci both would be better.

[jpalfree]

here's the output from lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400/KT600 AGP] Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 PCI Bridge
00:0a.0 Communication controller: TOPIC SEMICONDUCTOR Corp TP560 Data/Fax/Voice 56k modem
00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20276 (MBFastTrak133 Lite) (rev 01)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
00:13.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:14.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 46)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]

here's the output from lsmod:

Module                  Size  Used by
ppp_deflate             5953  0 
zlib_deflate           22745  1 ppp_deflate
ppp_async              12865  1 
ppp_generic            39893  6 ppp_deflate,ppp_async
slhc                    7105  1 ppp_generic
appletalk              34729  2 
ipx                    33769  2 
radeon                 76609  1 
drm                    70101  2 radeon
parport_pc             28933  1 
lp                     13001  0 
parport                40585  2 parport_pc,lp
md5                     4033  1 
ipv6                  268097  10 
autofs4                29253  2 
i2c_dev                11073  0 
i2c_core               21569  1 i2c_dev
rfcomm                 42333  0 
l2cap                  30661  5 rfcomm
bluetooth              56133  4 rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc                167813  1 
sd_mod                 20545  0 
ipt_REJECT              5569  6 
iptable_filter          2881  1 
ip_tables              19521  2 ipt_REJECT,iptable_filter
vfat                   13377  2 
fat                    54621  1 vfat
dm_mod                 58101  0 
video                  15941  0 
button                  6609  0 
battery                 9413  0 
ac                      4805  0 
usb_storage            73225  0 
scsi_mod              148105  2 sd_mod,usb_storage
ohci1394               41353  0 
ieee1394              304441  1 ohci1394
uhci_hcd               35152  0 
ehci_hcd               41037  0 
via_ircc               24021  0 
irda                  129657  1 via_ircc
crc_ccitt               2113  2 ppp_async,irda
snd_via82xx            30081  2 
gameport               18633  1 snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_codec         75961  1 snd_via82xx
snd_seq_dummy           3653  0 
snd_seq_oss            37057  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      9153  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                62289  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            51185  0 
snd_mixer_oss          17857  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm               100169  3 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              33605  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          9669  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart        10049  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            30305  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          8781  4 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd                    57157  15 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore              10913  1 snd
8139too                30017  0 
mii                     5441  1 8139too
floppy                 65269  0 
ext3                  132553  1 
jbd                    86233  1 ext3

i hope that helps.

[Gullible Jones]

Wait a minute... Does the crackling occur when you turn the CD audio volume too high?

[jpalfree]

Wait a minute... Does the crackling occur when you turn the CD audio volume too high?

nope. unfortunately not. i've tried practically everything in terms of messing around with the mixer controls. all inputs are muted and most outputs are muted aswell. I've been using xmms to play sound files but i've ruled out xmms as a problem. Audacity also playsback with the same distortion. and no matter how loud or quiet the main output volume is (PCM or master) it's the same level of distortion...

i tried opening the kde control center and going to "sound system" and selecting a different audio device... no change... ALSA, ESD, OSS... all the same.

i'm out of ideas...

[cmooring]

Hi jpalfree,

I'm not sure if you ever got this fixed but I had exactly the same situation as you (upgrading RH9 to FC4) and I couldn't sort it out until today.

I read this post;
<http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=51499>

and it now works fine for me. Try it out and hopefully you will soon be listening to music again too.

Bye for now,
Chris