Thats a rather big list. It appears a few group of changes:
- 9-March
- 21-Feb
- 18-Feb
- 16-Feb (this is a massive update).
Exactly when did this start happening again?
I see you updated the Kernel in your 9-March update. Typically a kernel update will come with updated sound drivers. Did this happen just after 9-March (ie yesterday) ?
no , i updated yesterday after i noticed this in the hopes it would fix it.
Im not really sure when this started happening because i dont use battery power often. Probably the more recent the more likely.
16-Feb maybe? i don’t know i don’t remember when ive used battery power last lol
In case this thread still has any viewers, I found a workaround to get rid of the irritating popping. My computer has an intel based sound card so it’s using the snd-hda-intel driver.
Search for power_save on this page and you’ll see the problem is the power_save parameter needs to be set to zero to stop the speakers from constantly powering down.
If your interested, the bottom of this page clues us in as to what exactly you’re changing. For a sanity check, you can go to /sys/modules/snd_hda_intel/parameters/ and cat any of them to see what they’re set to. You’ll see power_save is set to 10 by default.
Alright, to set power_save to zero at startup you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf. Just add the line options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 as follows:
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel power_save=0
# u1Nb.Xr0+ey1p7G5:82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
Now when you restart, running cat on the power_save parameter should show it’s set to zero. But, it’s not. It works for every other option except power_save=0. Perfect.
It turns out it does set power_save to zero when you restart the service (with the power_save=0 option still in 50-sound.conf):
sudo /etc/init.d/alsasound restart
So my ugly workaround is to add a startup service that just restarts alsasound (there’s got to be a better way).
Here’s how. Create a file in /etc/init.d/ and call it alsasoundrestart. Paste the following into it:
#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: alsasoundrestart
# Required-Start: $syslog $remote_fs
# Should-Start: $time ypbind smtp
# Required-Stop: $syslog $remote_fs
# Should-Stop: ypbind smtp
# Default-Start: 3 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 2 6
# Short-Description: Restarts alsasound service to set power_save to 0
# Description: sound service does not set power_save to 0 when
# options snd-hda-intel is added to startup script. This is a pain
# since the speakers constantly pop. Restarting the service sets the
# power_save parameter to 0.
### END INIT INFO
case "$1" in
start)
/etc/init.d/alsasound restart
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start}"
exit 1
;;
esac
rc_exit
chmod 755 it. Then run the following to add it to the startup services:
sudo /sbin/chkconfig -a alsasoundrestart
Which should echo this:
alsasoundrestart 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
chkconfig added a link to /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/ and /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/ which contains startup scripts for text and GUI runlevels. View the contents of both directories and you should see alsasoundrestart in the list with a S## prefix. Make sure it comes after the alsosound service (S07alsasound and S11alsasoundrestart for both rc3/5 in my case).
Now when you reboot it will start the alsasound service then restart it to set the powersave parameter to zero.
Unfortunately, there’s still an initial pop when it first loads, but no constant popping after. 
Sorry it’s a long workaround. Wish it just worked with options in modprobe.d. There’s gotta be a better solution.
Sam
Thanks for sharing your solution.
What you could do, if you have time, is write a bug report on openSUSE component “sound” on openSUSE-11.2. ???
Attach (don’t copy and paste, but attach) to the bug report the text file from running:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
and that will create the file /tmp/alsa-info.txt which can be added as an attachment. That has bunch of technical info that may show the alsa dev what is wrong with the alsa driver, IF you also describe the audio symptoms.
Note the SuSE-GmbH packager for sound is also an alsa developer, and if he founds your problem and approach of interest, and if he fixes this in alsa, the fix gets sent upstream and ALL Linux distributions will benefit from your efforts with him.
There is guidance here for raising bug reports: Submitting Bug Reports - openSUSE … The alsa developer/openSUSE packager, may ask that you try a few different alsa versions, and hence if your schedule is too busy for such support (and I definitely know what that can be like) then its probably best NOT to write such a bug report.
Don’t reference this thread, as the SuSE-GmbH packager refuses to read forum threads. Its important the bug report has all the salient information.
Good luck and thanks again for sharing !!
This bug was the closest thing I could find to the issue I’m having. Very similar but different driver.
Should I add to this or create my own bug?
If you have IDENTICAL hardware, then yes. But if your hardware is differnt, then start a NEW bug report.
Here’s the bug report. Woohoo! First bug report. Thanks for the tip.
Now every week or so its important to check on the bug report to see if it has been replied to. Note the Assignee T. Iwai. He is also an alsa driver developer.
Will do. I’m getting email alerts.
Please try it
Go to the energy manager panel and set in performance mode
and control performance profile is setting in performance , not powersaving
Not sure what your asking. I’m in GNOME if that makes any difference.
I use KDE
1 Open : System Settings/Power Management/Edit Profiles
set “CPU Frequency Scaling Policy” to “Performance”
2 Open : System Settings/Power Management/General Settings
set to “Performance”
Sorry for my english
No problem. And GNOMEs power management dialog is a little different. It doesn’t have an edit profiles or performance option. But I don’t think the cpu has anything to do with my speakers powering down. Unless setting to performance changes other settings. At any rate, power_save != 0 is the cause of my speakers popping.
Note the openSUSE packager is requesting more information in the bug report: Access Denied
Ya, Takashi Iwai has been updating the alsa drivers and having me install them. Each time he flags it as need info until I return the latest alsa-info. He’s been very helpful but the popping has been persistant. Manual reset still fixes it so I’m not too bothered but a real fix will be nice.
Thanks for the update though. I get email alerts when he responds though so it has been easy to stay current with him.