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#1 2017-07-08 21:01:26

MaciekChudek
Member
Registered: 2017-07-08
Posts: 11

Sound drops out over HDMI when playing games

I've run out of my own debugging ideas and google/arch-forums haven't been helpful. I'd be very grateful for any insights or ideas you guys have. My best guess is that it's my video card struggling, but the weird thing is this didn't used to happen with the exact same hardware.

Here's all the info I have:

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 760, using proprietary drivers (v. 381.22)

  • HDMI out to my TV (1920x1080 @ 60Hz)

  • Sound regularly drops out for about 0.5s while playing games. Sometimes happens once every few minutes, sometimes once every few seconds, sometimes almost continually.

  • Does not happen to sound over onboard sound card, only HDMI.

  • Does not happen when watching movies (or any other activity) over HDMI, only during games.

  • Tried dumping pulseaudio logs (-vvv), no evidence of anything amiss.

  • Tried mainline and zen kernels, no difference.

  • Seems uncorrelated to CPU load---cpu load remains low while problem happens, running CPU intensive apps simultaneously makes no difference.

  • In high-res games, turning down settings seems like it might make it better. Also seems to be better when the game is rendering a small, enclosed, easy-to-render space (vis-a-vis big outdoor space).

  • Happens in low-res, low-resource games too though, and still happens in high-res games on low settings.

  • Didn't used to happen about 6 months ago (last time I was using HDMI). Hardware hasn't changed since then (well, I added a HDD and USB game controller pad, but video card, cpu, mb, ram, tv, etc. unchanged).

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#2 2017-07-11 03:02:29

MaciekChudek
Member
Registered: 2017-07-08
Posts: 11

Re: Sound drops out over HDMI when playing games

I've just realised something else that has changed since 6 months ago, when this wasn't a problem. It's summer now. The GPU could be overheating due to the ambient room temperature being hotter. Going to order some fancier fans and thermal paste and see if it helps. Will report back eventually so this is more useful to people who stumble across it via google, even though it might not be a Arch-related issue after all.

Useful diagnostic steps:

Check GPU temp:

nvidia-settings -q gpucoretemp

Boost GPU fan speed manually:

nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1" -a "[fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"

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