no pcspkr beep with powersave enabled on snd-hda-intel

drrossum · 2015-09-12 17:41:26

I work with terminals (xterm etc.) a lot and rely on the audible beep to assist me.

When I enable the powersave feature on snd-hda-intel using

option snd-hda-intel powersave=1

the pcspkr does not wake-up snd-hda-intel from sleep. Other audio sources do. The beep works when snd-hda-intel is woken-up by other sources.

Using

option snd-hda-intel powersave=0

solves the problem but does not save power.

Does anyone know how to debug this? Does snd_hda_intel ignore certian interrupts or does it not receive the interrupt in the first place? Is pcspkr supposed to give the interrupt?

Any help is appreciated!

mich41 · 2015-09-12 18:08:05

Hardware-wise, beeps are generated by the PIT timer and routed to a dedicated analog input of the soundcard. It's entirely possible that soundcards don't monitor this input when put to sleep.

I'd look for some way to generate beeps in the terminal emulator using usual sound APIs. Maybe somewhere someone created something like that for non-PC platforms.

drrossum · 2015-09-13 03:48:38

Thanks for the info! It makes perfect sense that the analog input is not monitored while asleep.

I wonder if, in principle, a kernel driver could be written with an interface compatible to "pcspkr" but that would use a usual sound API instead of the PIT timer.

Anyway, let me talk to schmorp, the developer of urxvt, to see if he knows how to make urxvt use a sound API on a beep event.

drrossum · 2016-04-06 16:11:49

This thread solves the problem in the way suggested by mich41:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=167887

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-12 17:41:26

no pcspkr beep with powersave enabled on snd-hda-intel

#2 2015-09-12 18:08:05

Re: no pcspkr beep with powersave enabled on snd-hda-intel

#3 2015-09-13 03:48:38

Re: no pcspkr beep with powersave enabled on snd-hda-intel

#4 2016-04-06 16:11:49

Re: no pcspkr beep with powersave enabled on snd-hda-intel

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