Hello,

I have been having all sorts of weird problems with sound (fresh install of slackware 9.1).

My motherboard is Asus P4T-E with on-board sound.

The relevant part of my lspci -v is:
---------------------------------
Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio (rev 04)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 8072
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
I/O ports at e100 [size=64]
-------------------------------------
And I also add the ethernet part, only because it uses the same irq
-------------------
Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105 [Rhine-III] (rev 86)
Subsystem: D-Link System Inc: Unknown device 1403
Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
I/O ports at b800 [size=256]
Memory at ee800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
--------------------------------
alsaconf runs fine, and it seems it installed everything ok. When I startx, sound works, but is crackly. In the control center of kde, I put ALSA instead of auto-detect, and it didnt change anything.

Asus has linux sound drivers up for download on their website, but it ends up being only an older version of the alsa drivers (alsa-driver-0.9.0beta3.tar.bz2 to be precise).

I tried to run mplayer countless times on mp3 and video files. A few times it worked, but with crackly sound. Most of the time it only played the video part of the files, and returned the following:
--------------------
Checking audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/16bit -> 48000Hz/2ch/16bit...
AF_pre: af format: 2 bps, 2 ch, 48000 hz, little endian signed int
AF_pre: 48000Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian)
SDL: Samplerate: 48000Hz Channels: Stereo Format Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian)
SDL: using esd audio driver
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1055snd_pcm_hw_open) open /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p failed: Device or resource busy
SDL: Unable to open audio: No available audio device
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
-----------------------
It's almost magical the way it sometimes works (with crackly sound) and it sometimes doesnt work at all. I cant see any logic in it.

Thanks in advance for any help,
-Danodare

It sounds like you're using arts - the KDE sound server.
It also looks like mplayer is configured to use esd audio driver. Which is why the soundcard is busy - arts has control of it.
You need to set mplayer to use arts output.

As for the crackly sound... are you mixing channels using kmix? I was getting distorted sound (on a different chipset, but with ALSA), and I found out the problem only occurred when using kmix. if I use alsamix to mix my channels, everything's crystal clear.

--Rounan

Thanks a lot =)

I went from having only the words "crackly sound" and alsa in mind to kmix and arts. I browsed the forums for a while and tried a few things, and zoooo my problem is solved. aRTs seems to be the culprit.

I unchecked "start aRTs soundserver on kde startup" in kde control center -> sound & multimedia, then I told xmms to use Alsa output plugin, and my mp3s play perfectly.

I told mplayer to use alsa as well ("mplayer -ao alsa9 somenicevideo.avi") and the sound is perfect.

I no longer have any bells in kde, but they were annoying anyway, so I dont mind =).

I wouldnt mind if someone could post an explanation on why aRTs doesnt interact well with alsa and made my sound so screwy, but for now I am glad I can play all my music and video.

Thanks again,
-Danodare