options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=0
This fixes the stuttering with an ALC268 sound card in my Compal JFL92 laptop. Also, when MSI is enabled, there's an IRQ-related message for the Intel HD Audio driver in the output of dmesg; this message isn't present when MSI is disabled:
[ 5.230055] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1b.0: irq 47 for MSI/MSI-X
Here's the output from the command "sudo lspci -v 2>/dev/null | grep -A 10 Audio" for my laptop with enable_msi=0, which might help others find this post in internet searches; you'll notice the line containing "Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable-", indicating MSI is disabled:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: COMPAL Electronics Inc Device 0025
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20
Memory at f8400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
And lastly, the Vendor Id of the ALC268 in my JFL92 is 0x10ec0268, Subsystem Id 0x14c00025, Revision Id 0x100003 (these three Ids gotten from the start of /proc/asound/card0/codec#0).
]]>How old is the HD?
I'd suggest you to install a disk utility and do a S.M.A.R.T. check on it.
sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility
Run the program and select "SMART DATA". You'll be prompted to enter your password. Then, see if there's already any bad sector, and do a complete scan even if no bad sectors are reported.
On my old 320 GB drive it took about an hour to check everything.
If there's no bad sectors than I suggest using Gnewsense, last time I used it it had 2.6 Kernel, and it's sponsored by FSF.
]]>Just so we're on the same page, you're not using the same laptop from when Linux-2.6 was released, right?
]]>Here's some links of pages describing my problem, but with no fixes:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p … 0&p=394708
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … bug/550482
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1471262
Some extra information: A long time ago, in the 2.6.x kernel days, my system didn't have occasional halts, but then an update started causing halts in some version of 2.6.x. I had the halting issue up until I installed Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon. I recently tried installing Lubuntu 13.04 (overwriting the Linux Mint 14 installation) but the halting issue returned, and the halting issue is also present in my current Arch Linux install. Also, I'm not using PulseAudio in my current Arch Linux install.
]]>