[SOLVED] Arch linux sound crackling/skipping.

VladDorn1254 · 04-09-2019, 05:24 PM

Hello everyone. I am having trouble with small skips
and crackling inside arch linux. I have just recently
installed this arch install onto my pc last week and have
been working on it and have been satistied with everything
besides the volume problems i am stating here.
(please excuse my spelling mistakes as english is not my native language)

in both firefox and vlc media player I have been having
audio skipping and crackling and I am certian it is
not my hardware as it works in windows and linux mint.

the first thing I did was change:
/etc/pulse/default.pa

load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0

I then restarted pulseaudio and then tried again to
listen to a sound file in vlc. the sound stayed the
same.

after this failed I then tried to set the buffer
and fragment size by using the command :

$ pactl list sinks

after i had looked at the information about my sound card I
could see what I needed to do. here is the part from the
arch wiki that talks about calculating fragment sizes i have
edited to show my exact calculations I got for my sound card.

device.buffering.buffer_size = "17664" => 17664/1411200 = 0.0125 s = 12.5 ms
device.buffering.fragment_size = "2994" => 2994/1411200 = 0.002086 s = 2.086 ms

In the previous step, we calculated the fragment size parameter. The number of fragments is simply buffer_size/fragment_size, which in this case (12.5/2.086) is 5.599:

I then changed /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to use these parameters ( i also tried both just 5 and 2 as well same result) :

; default-fragments = 5.599
; default-fragment-size-msec = 2.086

then restarted pulse again.

I then tested the same audio file in vlc and though the skipping slightly
went down, the problem is still there.

after all of that i decided to take out tsched=0 again from
/etc/pulse/default.pa

when i had done that the crackling and skipping had gone away again even more,
but every 30 seconds or so the crackling and skipping still did happen.

my hardware: 16 gb ram ddr3
amd radeon r9 380 4gb
amd fx 6300 6 core
72000 rpm hdd
gigabyte 970a ud3p
KDE plasma
onboard sound

Here is an example of the issue i tried to recreate in audacity: https://soundcloud.com/user-83962389...xample/s-L79lX

frankbell · 04-09-2019, 07:32 PM

Let me make sure I'm clear. This problem started with Arch and did not exist previously?

What operating systems have you used with which this problem did not occur?

VladDorn1254 · 04-09-2019, 07:45 PM

I apologize i should have made that clear in the beginning. I had also gotten audio skipping problems in debian 9.5 stable (I also got many other problems and my hardware was not well supported in 9.5 so I moved on to other distros ) and also Manjaro had similar noise problems. But both windows 7, 8, and 10 had no problems and linux mint 17-19 had no issues, also a live usb of kali linux and a live cd of tails had no audio problems as well. so From this it does indeed look to be arch distro specific other than debian stable.

frankbell · 04-09-2019, 07:46 PM

What is the make/model of the sound card? (The command lspci issued in a terminal should reveal that information. You may have to issue the command as root.)

VladDorn1254 · 04-09-2019, 08:29 PM

Here is the output of lspci on my system:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD9x0/RX980 Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890S/RD990 I/O Memory Management Unit (IOMMU)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GFX port 0)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GPP Port 0)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GPP Port 4)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 5
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga PRO [Radeon R9 285/380] (rev f1)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
02:00.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VL805 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)

I am guessing that 'Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 0-5' Is my built in audio device that I am using because it is a typical motherboard sound that has the 6 line inputs/outputs on the back.

VladDorn1254 · 04-16-2019, 04:17 PM

Ok everyone so here is what happened. My system stopped having audio problems after a few days so I assume maybe the changes did not take place until i restarted the system a few times or there was a driver update.