(9.10) Sound garbled, crackles

[jdunavin]

I am literally at my wit's end on this, so here goes. I have a Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic card, which worked perfectly in 9.04. I upgraded to 9.10 and got extraordinarily crackled/garbled sound from any source (music / Web videos / system sounds, etc).

I thought it was because of Pulse Audio, so I tried all the remedies I could find on this forum and elsewhere to no avail. I've tried both the GNOME Ubuntu and Kubuntu with the same results (which led me to believe it might not be Pulse).

I've installed the latest ALSA drivers for my card.

If it's any help, I've attached both the output of aplay and the verbose output of Pulse.

I hope this kind of thing isn't the sign of things to come for this distro, as I've used it since the beginning.

Any ideas or suggestions, I'd appreciate 'em.

Thanks,

[lidex]

Can you post the output of this command:

head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*

[lidex]

You updated alsa via this how to??
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...10#post6589810
What version do you now have?

cat /proc/asound/version

[jdunavin]

The first command (head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*) produced an error "No such file or directory". The second shows the version as 1.0.21.

I enabled my MB's on board sound which appears to work okay. I'd still like to get this working, though.

[lidex]

The first command (head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*) produced an error "No such file or directory". The second shows the version as 1.0.21.

Sounds like a problem.
Let me see the output of these commands:

sudo lshw -C sound

find /lib/modules/`uname -r` | grep snd

[jdunavin]

The first command, which shows my Creative card along with the onboard sound and my TV card:

*-multimedia
description: Multimedia audio controller
product: CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: d
bus info: pci@0000:00:0d.0
version: a2
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=Intel ICH latency=0 maxlatency=5 mingnt=2
resources: irq:22 ioport:e800(size=256) ioport:ec00(size=256) memory:dfffc000-dfffcfff
*-multimedia:0
description: Multimedia audio controller
product: SB X-Fi
vendor: Creative Labs
physical id: 3
bus info: pci@0000:03:03.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=SB-XFi latency=64 maxlatency=5 mingnt=4
resources: irq:19 ioport:cce0(size=32) memory:dce00000-dcffffff memory:d8000000-dbffffff
*-multimedia:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Multimedia controller
product: ATI Technologies Inc
vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
physical id: 4
bus info: pci@0000:03:04.0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=64 maxlatency=4 mingnt=2
resources: memory:dcd00000-dcdfffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff(prefetchable)

And the second is attached because it was longer.

Thanks for taking an interest.

[lidex]

Run these commands:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo update-grub

Shutdown. Remove Sound Card. Wipe the contacts with a clean cloth lighty moistened with rubbing alcohol. Now reseat SB in slot firmly. Reboot into bios and disable onboard sound. Start normally.

Post the contents of:

gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

[jdunavin]

Contents of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf as follows:

# autoloader aliases
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1
install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2
install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3
install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4
install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5
install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6
install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7

# Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules
install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-ioctl32 ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }
#
# Workaround at bug #499695 (reverted in Ubuntu see LP #319505)
install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-pcm-oss ; : ; }
install snd-mixer /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-mixer $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-mixer-oss ; : ; }
install snd-seq /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-seq $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-oss ; : ; }
#
install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; : ; }
# Cause optional modules to be loaded above sound card driver modules
install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-emu10k1-synth ; }
install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }

# Load saa7134-alsa instead of saa7134 (which gets dragged in by it anyway)
install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist saa7134-alsa ; : ; }
# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options saa7134-alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
options snd-usb-audio index=-2
options snd-usb-us122l index=-2
options snd-usb-usx2y index=-2
options snd-usb-caiaq index=-2
# Ubuntu #62691, enable MPU for snd-cmipci
options snd-cmipci mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388
# Keep snd-pcsp from being loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
# Power down HDA controllers after 10 idle seconds
#options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N

[m0ar]

My soundproblems in Karmic was solved by the soundproblemsolder of them all

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio

[jdunavin]

Unfortunately, that didn't solve mine. I even installed Kubuntu 9.10, which doesn't even have it (fully?) installed. Same results.