High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

oxez · 2010-04-20 17:52:07

Hello.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A500. Everything works perfectly on Linux so far except this little annoyance: there's a high-pitched noise coming from speakers.

http://www.oxez.net/files/test.ogg => you can hear it there

The card is using the snd-hda-intel, and the codec is: Realtek ALC272

Someone from IRC suggested me to play with alsamixer and mute stuff, but even muting everything doesn't help. Plugging headphones in the laptop helps for around 2 minutes, then the noise comes back.

Also. Moving my mouse (usb or bluetooth), or doing something like: nice yes > /dev/null gets rid of the noise.

I'm not sure what's causing this... it's definately not a hardware problem since it's not happening on Windows.

Here's the output of the alsa-info.sh script: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=55e3f … a3ee160885

Any suggestions?

Last edited by oxez (2010-04-21 00:10:15)

oxez · 2010-04-21 20:50:28

I tried the following:

Downgrade kernel to 2.6.32.x (using the 'Arch Rollback Machine'). The problem was still there.

Upgraded to 2.6.33.2. Problem went away. (For now at least).

I'll wait a couple days before marking this as [SOLVED] just to see if it comes back

brebs · 2010-04-21 21:17:56

oxez wrote:

nice yes > /dev/null gets rid of the noise.

Sounds like CPU power-saving.

oxez · 2010-04-22 00:57:57

brebs wrote:

oxez wrote:
nice yes > /dev/null gets rid of the noise.
Sounds like CPU power-saving.

I didn't do anything to enable cpu power-saving. I've read that url before, that's where I got that nice yes > /dev/null command.

Also, I found out why I didn't have the problem after the update; I still had some options set in modprobe.conf which prevented the loading of snd-hda-intel. Loading the module brings up the issue again.

oxez · 2010-04-23 01:40:48

I think I solved it, again I'll test for a few days.

In Ubuntu's launchpad, there's a bug report on that exact issue where a solution is to comment the following line in a modprobe.conf file:

options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N

Well I didn't have this line, so I just tried to add it. And it seemed to have solved my problem. Kinda ironic, do the exact opposite of a possible solution. If I use sound, then stop it, I'll hear the noise for a couple of seconds, then it'll stop.

Will mark [solved] in a few days if it still works

brebs · 2010-04-23 05:25:19

oxez wrote:

I'll hear the noise for a couple of seconds, then it'll stop.

10 seconds, by any chance? Why don't you try specifying 0 instead of 10? See parameters:

modinfo snd-hda-intel | grep -i power

You're lucky that the fix is so easy - seems to be the power-saving of the sound chip, rather than the CPU.

skanky · 2010-04-23 09:33:07

Do you have laptop-mode installed? That turns on power saving for the card if you set the global setting on. You can turn it off in the /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/intel-hda-powersave.conf file.

oxez · 2010-04-25 00:16:52

I don't have laptop-mode installed.

Setting power_save to anything below 10 and the problem comes back. I hate that this is a "random" fix, but at least I can study while my laptop is running without getting a headache...

I'll try to digg a little further

Arch Linux

#1 2010-04-20 17:52:07

High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#2 2010-04-21 20:50:28

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#3 2010-04-21 21:17:56

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#4 2010-04-22 00:57:57

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#5 2010-04-23 01:40:48

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#6 2010-04-23 05:25:19

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#7 2010-04-23 09:33:07

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

#8 2010-04-25 00:16:52

Re: High-pitched noise coming from speakers.

Board footer