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Have installed RealPlayer on Debian Sarge and there is a horrid,
loudish, crackly, static-like background noise.

This problem is not new to me. I had it on Fedora Core 2 but could very
often get rid of it by "jiggling" things around or giving the system a
"blast through" by playing say a .wmv file with MPlayer or Xine. I got
it on Ubuntu when I installed the KDE desktop (everything was alright
with Gnome), seemed to get rid of it, but got it back again without
remedy after installing and playing about with MPlayer.

In "Volume Control" varying the PCM control varies both this background
noise and the desired audio level while varying the VIA DXS controls
only varies the audio level. (But one requires a certain PCM level to
get any sound at all, so it's no way of eliminating the noise.)

There is much reference to the problem in the various lists but I've not
so far found a solution.

Currently I'm trying to investigate the effect of aRTs (as suggested in
other lists). AFAIK I'm only using aRTs in association with k3b
(libartsc0, libarts1 - uninstalling k3b and these items did not solve
the problem). If I try to stop artsd, I get:

# artsd stop
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed:
Broken pipe
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed:
Broken pipe

If I go to:

Applications>Debian Menu>Apps>System>Services Admin

I get:

"/usr/bin/services-admin" (No such file or directory)

Any suggestions of a way forward would be most welcome.

2GHz Intel Celeron
Shuttle AV49VN Mainboard
VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 (Onboard Audio Controller)

> Have installed RealPlayer on Debian Sarge and there is a horrid,
> loudish, crackly, static-like background noise.
>
> This problem is not new to me. I had it on Fedora Core 2 but could very
> often get rid of it by "jiggling" things around or giving the system a
> "blast through" by playing say a .wmv file with MPlayer or Xine. I got
> it on Ubuntu when I installed the KDE desktop (everything was alright
> with Gnome), seemed to get rid of it, but got it back again without
> remedy after installing and playing about with MPlayer.
>
> In "Volume Control" varying the PCM control varies both this background
> noise and the desired audio level while varying the VIA DXS controls
> only varies the audio level. (But one requires a certain PCM level to
> get any sound at all, so it's no way of eliminating the noise.)
>
> There is much reference to the problem in the various lists but I've not
> so far found a solution.
<snip>
>
> 2GHz Intel Celeron
> Shuttle AV49VN Mainboard
> VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 (Onboard Audio Controller)

I don't know exactly what's causing your problem, but I had a lot of
similar hard-to-trace problems with my onboard audio. They only went
away for good when I changed to a new sound card. Many people have
reported problems with onboard sound.

The SoundBlaster series are very popular sound cards, but a lot of
people report problems with them too, and I had a lot of hassles with
one. Finally got a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, for $36 at NewEgg. It runs
on the cs46xx driver, just a smooth as silk. Since I got it I've
finally been able to stop constantly screwing with sound-- it just
works.

Good luck,
Andrew.

--
To reply by email, replace "deadspam.com" by "alumni.utexas.net"

Robert Tucker wrote:
> Have installed RealPlayer on Debian Sarge and there is a horrid,
> loudish, crackly, static-like background noise.
>
> This problem is not new to me. I had it on Fedora Core 2 but could very
> often get rid of it by "jiggling" things around or giving the system a
> "blast through" by playing say a .wmv file with MPlayer or Xine. I got
> it on Ubuntu when I installed the KDE desktop (everything was alright
> with Gnome), seemed to get rid of it, but got it back again without
> remedy after installing and playing about with MPlayer.
>
> In "Volume Control" varying the PCM control varies both this background
> noise and the desired audio level while varying the VIA DXS controls
> only varies the audio level. (But one requires a certain PCM level to
> get any sound at all, so it's no way of eliminating the noise.)
>
> There is much reference to the problem in the various lists but I've not
> so far found a solution.
>
> Currently I'm trying to investigate the effect of aRTs (as suggested in
> other lists). AFAIK I'm only using aRTs in association with k3b
> (libartsc0, libarts1 - uninstalling k3b and these items did not solve
> the problem). If I try to stop artsd, I get:
>
> # artsd stop
> ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed:
> Broken pipe
> ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed:
> Broken pipe
>
> If I go to:
>
> Applications>Debian Menu>Apps>System>Services Admin
>
> I get:
>
> "/usr/bin/services-admin" (No such file or directory)
>
> Any suggestions of a way forward would be most welcome.
>
> 2GHz Intel Celeron
> Shuttle AV49VN Mainboard
> VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 (Onboard Audio Controller)

Had similar prblems on laptops and desktops with various brands of sound
cards. I eliminated the "interference" by muting all audio channels
except the master Line-In and PCM (I don't use CD). I found in some
cases that it was the CD channel, in other cases it was the Line-In
channel that was picking up the noise.

Some audio programs like xmms/xine/mplayer/RealPlayer and your favorite
mixer, may be saving volume levels of these channels seperately, which
means that if you do mute all channels except Master and PCM, things
might just go back to the way they were by opening another audio
application.

Since first posting have installed MPlayer and extra codecs so Totem and
MPlayer can play .rm .wmv etc etc

Playing CD's, DVD's and .wmv files is never a problem but the noise
occurs with .rm whether played with RealPlayer (from file or stream),
Totem or MPlayer and with .mpg. On previous systems (so probably on
Debian too) the problem also occurred with system sounds, .wav, .au and
probably mp3.

However I was carrying out the muting suggestions using the 'Test'
facility for alsasink in 'GStreamer Preferences' to generate the sound,
stopped the sound and went to restart the sound when I got:

-Error-

-Failed to construct test pipeline for 'ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture'-

Tried playing .rm and .wmv and found the problem noise had disappeared -
I've a distinct feeling though that it will be back!

I might have stated that I'm using, if you didn't guess, the ALSA
drivers in the 2.6.7-1-686 kernel.

Since first posting have installed MPlayer and extra codecs so Totem and
MPlayer can play .rm .wmv etc etc

Playing CD's, DVD's and .wmv files is never a problem but the noise
occurs with .rm whether played with RealPlayer (from file or stream),
Totem or MPlayer and with .mpg. On previous systems (so probably on
Debian too) the problem also occurred with system sounds, .wav, .au and
probably mp3.

However I was carrying out the muting suggestions using the 'Test'
facility for alsasink in 'GStreamer Preferences' to generate the sound,
stopped the sound and went to restart the sound when I got:

-Error-

-Failed to construct test pipeline for 'ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture'-

Tried playing .rm and .mpg and found the problem noise had disappeared -
I've a distinct feeling though that it will be back!

I might have stated that I'm using, if you didn't guess, the ALSA
drivers in the 2.6.7-1-686 kernel.