Audio Problem

English Multimedia
1

Hello-

I have a strange issue here- at least, it’s strange to me.

I’ve been migrating all of my home computers to openSUSE for the last two years or so, and this weekend I decided to take a deep breath and dump Windows 7 from my best machine. I didn’t anticipate any problems, but there is one.

So, I’ve got a custom built i5 with 16gb of RAM and a couple of solid-state drives. I had it built with the idea of doing design work at home, but the reality is that after staring at it all day at work, I’m not very interested in loading up Solidworks anymore, and I never use it for the original intent. Instead, it’s a pretty spiffy media machine with a 27" monitor and BOSE speakers. Windows started glitching out and told me that I wasn’t allowed to delete .avi files from drive, and I wasn’t having it, so I decided to drop Windows and run openSUSE here as well. That makes the eighth and last computer in the house to make the switch, and I’m liking it- except for one thing.

The volume control is messed up. It jumps up and down erratically, and it causes popping when listening to music. It’s not terrible with voices or sound effects, but it really messes with music, and that’s a big part of what I use this machine for. This is a new install of openSUSE 12.3, essentially untouched and ready for tweaking. I started with 12.2 because that was the disk I already had, and ran an update first thing.

The motherboard is an Intel DH67BL, with integrated sound that SUSE is reading as NVIDIA audio, and I have an ASUS GeForce GTX 650 for video. I’m willing to give up CAD on this machine, and go all Linux for my household, but the irritating popping audio and the constant flashing volume pop-up at the top of the screen is more or less a deal-breaker- I didn’t pay a hundred bucks for speakers so that they could sound like garbage. It’s frustrating, because I’ve never seen this before, and it seems like such a basic thing. Not sure what way to lean here, because Windows’ Real-Tec Audio sucks too, with all kinds of random problems like deciding that I would prefer to hear my music as it would sound inside a sewer pipe without asking me- but at least there, I have the option to change it back.

So, I’m hoping someone has a fix here. I’ve got very high regard for the openSUSE OS, enough to recommend and have installed it on better than a dozen computers this year, and this is the first time it has given me any real trouble. I’m hoping I can fix it quick and forget it ever happened…

Thanks in advance!

2

Ok have you gone to yest-hardware and reinstalled the audio drivers some time that works. But that is an odd problem. Also check you plugs and do you have any mics or other source device that my have mismatched impedance?? The bouncing volume control has got me scratching my head though.

3

Took a little while to figure out how to reinstall the driver, but I did get it figured out I also noticed that there was a second sound card installed that represented the GeForce graphics card that controls the HDMI output, so I disabled that.

It’s a little better, I think, but the “bouncing” is still there. As I thought about it today at work, I remembered that the system clock was behaving in a similar manner. It was several hours off after the install, so I manually adjusted it, and it did not want to accept the adjustments. I’d click up on the hour arrow, and it would switch for a split second before reverting. As weird as it may sound, they look like the same problem- does anyone know if the volume control and the system clock share any libraries that I can try to reinstall?

Thanks.

4

Did you run a media check before you installed?

5

Yes… but it’s somewhat more complicated than that. I had an openSUSE 12.2 disk that I have used many times, and it passed the media check. Since I was installing a new system, I figured that I may as well upgrade it first thing. I was out of blank DVDs, so I installed 12.2, and then proceeded to immediately update 12.2 via zypper and then upgrade to 12.3 using the repositories. That worked out fairly well on my laptop, and there were a lot of packages installed, so I figured it would be fine with a new install with no 3rd party repos.

I do have some more blank DVDs now, so I could re-install, though it would be more pleasant not to.

Back to the original issue, after disabling the GTX650 (Nvidia) audio driver, I lost my pulse icon at the top the screen, and had no sound at all. So, I rebooted, and got an error message telling me that KDE?!? (I’m running Gnome 3) had detected that pulse-audio had been uninstalled. Wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I figured I’d give it a try. The pulse audio icon in the upper right no longer works, but it did get rid of the volume jumping. Currently, each program controls it’s own audio stream, and that’s kind of okay because it is delivering clear sound- but I would still like to have it controlled by pulse so that my keyboard’s volume keys still function. The clock settings are running smooth now as well.

I’m going to try re-installing pulse-audio via YaST, but if it fails again, I’m thinking this is probably a bug report as much as anything. Worst comes to worst, I might just go back to 12.2, and wait a bit before upgrading.

6

Just some thoughts,

Back to the original issue, after disabling the GTX650 (Nvidia) audio driver, I lost my pulse icon at the top the screen, and had no sound at all. So, I rebooted, and got an error message telling me that KDE?!? (I’m running Gnome 3) had detected that pulse-audio had been uninstalled. Wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I figured I’d give it a try. The pulse audio icon in the upper right no longer works, but it did get rid of the volume jumping. Currently, each program controls it’s own audio stream, and that’s kind of okay because it is delivering clear sound- but I would still like to have it controlled by pulse so that my keyboard’s volume keys still function. The clock settings are running smooth now as well.

How did you disable the GTX650 audio driver?

YaST --------> Sound ?

maybe this might help : |
(mentions glitches in playback)https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Pulseaudio#Glitches_in_audio_playback

& you might want to check here,
(general sound stuff), quoted below.
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/309430-welcome-multimedia-sub-area.html

Note users of openSUSE-11.4 and newer (where pulse audio is enabled by default) who have audio problems should consider installing “pavucontrol” and then run “pavucontrol” and use it to select one’s sound device and control the volume/muting.

& here (audio troubleshooting)
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Audio_troubleshooting#PulseAudio_Volume_Control

It’s a little better, I think, but the “bouncing” is still there. As I thought about it today at work, I remembered that the system clock was behaving in a similar manner. It was several hours off after the install, so I manually adjusted it, and it did not want to accept the adjustments. I’d click up on the hour arrow, and it would switch for a split second before reverting

Is this in OpenSuse or in the BIOS?

It sounds like you were changing this stuff in YaST --------> Date & Time.

Are you set to UTC?

The ‘Help’ in Date & Time reads;

-----snip-------

Specify whether your machine is set to local time or UTC in Hardware Clock Set To. Most PCs that also have other operating systems installed (such as Microsoft Windows) use local time. Machines that have only Linux installed are usually set to Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). If the hardware clock is set to UTC, your system can switch from standard time to daylight saving time and back automatically.
Note: The internal system clock as used by the Linux kernel must always be in UTC, because this is the reference for the correct localtime in user space. If you are choosing localtime for CMOS clock, check the user manual for background information about side effects.
If the current time is not correct, use Change to adjust it.

-------snip-------

-a5’