From owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 26 18:16:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D8EB16A4CE; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:16:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from starling.mail.pas.earthlink.net (starling.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 27A6B43D45; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:16:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from welchsm@earthlink.net) Received: from c-24-118-221-205.mn.client2.attbi.com ([24.118.221.205] helo=NitroPhys.welchsmnet.net) by starling.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 3.36 #4) id 1BIHDK-0002wm-00; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:16:47 -0700 Received: from NitroPhys.welchsmnet.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) i3R1GT5R002837; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:16:35 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from welchsm@localhost.welchsmnet.net) Received: (from welchsm@localhost)i3R1GTmA002836; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:16:29 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from welchsm) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:16:29 -0500 From: Sean Welch To: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040427011629.GA2789@NitroPhys.welchsmnet.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-ELNK-Trace: 15d86f98c8ef8acad780f4a490ca69564776905774d2ac4bddf2a90f75da8f45908a2d582431bccb350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: More on sound issues with 5.2.1-RELEASE on Dell I8000 X-BeenThere: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: Sean_Welch@alum.wofford.org List-Id: Multimedia discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:16:50 -0000 I apologize in advance for cross-posting; the nature of this issue appears to be relevant to both lists. I had posted earlier to the multimedia list about this problem. In short, I have discovered that with my batteries installed playing any sounds through pcm (with the exception of audio cds) is plagued by blurs or blips lasting fractions of a second. Without batteries installed this does not occur, and the symptoms are unrelated to AC line status. The problem isn't there under either 5.2-RELEASE or 4.9-RELEASE. I've been playing around a bit with FreeSBIE (nice!) and a lark popped it into my Dell only to find that the sound issue wasn't there! Earlier I had already tried all sorts of mods to the sound code and also reverted to a GENERIC kernel but was unable to make the problem go away. This time I left everthing as I already had it (stock sound code and custom kernel) and tried to play my test mp3 from the command line using amp outside of X (gdm running, but logged in under a vt) and there were no problems. Then I started X on :1 (gdm had :0) running just twm and neither amp nor xmms had a problem. I added gkrellm and still no problem. I started up esd and still had no issues. At this point, convinced it was something running under my gnome session, I logged from gdm and immediately saw the sound problem again. Taking a stab in the dark I shut down the battery status applet and the problem disappeared! Curious, I tried switching to the apm component in gkrellm for battery status and the problem returned. I found the same issue with xbattbar as well. Evidently the issue is with the apm emulation used to give battery status when using acpi; it looks as though any program that polls this code causes the sound blurs/blips. A couple of wrinkles -- the blurs/blips return when the batteries are all topped up and the AC line is connected. I can trigger a blur/blip by running the apm command, though it doesn't happen absolutely every time I run it. Specifically, it doesn't happen every time when I run apm with short intervals between iterations. Is there some sort of cache involved with this? So what's the next step? Sean