Pulse Audio does nothing but crackle

[Hudak998]

Hello,

I'm quite new to Linux, but since I'm working with it at school, I decided to try it out at home.

I'm running an HP m9400f that I added an additional 320gb Western Digital hd. It has a dual boot setup with Windows Vista 64bit, and Kubuntu 9.04 installed. I freshly installed it from a downloaded CD last night. It runs and ATI Radeon HD3650 graphics chip, and a High Definition 8-channel audio using an ALC 888S chipset.

I originally installed ubuntu with the gnome desktop, but I wanted the KDE system so I downloaded a new CD for kubuntu. ( I know I could have just installed KDE that way, and I tried, but it didn't end well.)

Everything else seems to be working well, except my audio. The startup sounds work, but playing videos or games doesn't produce any sound except a crackle. I checked the system settings, and the audio identified 4 total devices; 3 hardware, and pulse audio. If I run test on them, the analog (which is what my speakers are plugged into) produces sound, but the pulse audio just crackles. I've looked around on line for some guidance, but really I can't follow half of what they say. Can anybody provide me with a real newbie walkthrough for how to fix this?

Thanks

[Rubberman]

Pulse Audio is still a work-in-progress and has a lot of bugs. I don't know if your problem is chip-set specific or not. You are going to need to do some experimentation with drivers, configuration settings, etc. In the end, it might not work for you.

[Hudak998]

Pulse Audio is still a work-in-progress and has a lot of bugs. I don't know if your problem is chip-set specific or not. You are going to need to do some experimentation with drivers, configuration settings, etc. In the end, it might not work for you.

Ok, Understandable, but... What are alternatives to Pulse audio, how do I get them, what are the pros and cons of them vs trying to get Pulse to work? What tests would you suggest? How do I tell if it is chipset specific? Where do I tweak the config settings, what settings do I tweak, and what do I tweak them to? Any suggestions on that front?

Please remember I am quite new to linux, and don't understand most of this stuff. I need some more in-depth guidance. Thanks

[Peregrine]

Solved!

I had exactly this problem, under Kubuntu 9.04 with Intel HDA ALC888 onboard sound. Lots of people are around complaining about crackling noises coming over their other sound, but only your description exactly matched what I had. Anyway, I found a tip that worked for me on the Ubuntu Forums. Specifically:

Scratchy, glitchy sound
If you have an HDA-Intel device try turning up the PCM slider in the volume control. If PCM is set to 0 it makes the sound scratchy for some of those devices.

(Can't post the link, too new to these forums. "The volume control", at least on my machine, meant GNOME ALSA Mixer; KMix seems to have problems for me.)

Just had to sign up here and share, hope this helps others.