Re: pulseaudio / alc1220 sound clicks interruptions etc

On Tue, Jun 3, 2025 at 3:30 PM Amar Takhar <verm@darkbeer.org> wrote:
> On 2025-06-03 06:49 +0200, Tomek CEDRO wrote:
> > Hello world :-)
> >
> > I just switched to Intel Ultra 9 285K platform with ASUS mainboard
> > which has currently very popular Realtek ALC1220 HDA sound codec. In
> > theory this codec supports 32-bit sound with 192kHz samplerate
> > playback (and some lower params for recording).
> >
> > I am experiencing really annoying sound clicks and glitches /
> > interruptions on FreeBSD that are hard to stand when using anything
> > beyond 16-bit 44.1kHz sound. At 48kHz glitches are rare but already
> > show up, at 96 and 192kHz sound is unusable. No problems like this on
> > windoze.There is one USB audio card (KM-BT1) that allows me to connect
> > over bluetooth headphones and it has the same issues.
>
> Do you think it's related to either of these?
>
> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=261169
> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=263385
>
> I'm on Alder Lake and this has been a constant issue.  It's the Realtek ALC897
> the popping is worse when playing video but when the system hits certain types
> of load it's a lot worse.
>
> If you boot in verbose you can see the buffer errors causing the clicking
> sounds.
>
>
> > Most likely PulseAudio is to blame as it also does some conversions on
> > the fly and may not catch up. Also played with most of the PA
>
> It happens with all sound devices for me.  USB, optical out, OSS, PulseAudio
> doesn't matter the device or transport.
>
> I suspect it's the same issue I've been having I haven't tried the latest audio
> stack but previous upgrades either made it marginally better or worse.

Thank you for the references on related issues! There is definitely
something wrong below on the new hardware support because also all of
the onboard USB controllers hangs occasionally, even when I was
writing this reply before. I did add PCI-E USB controller and this one
does not hang, music plays, etc. USB is another problem, that may come
from the same source - timings, delays, timeouts.

After exhausting sysctl changes I went to BIOS and changed PCI-E 16x
configutation to be 8x/8x with NVME controller and problem seems gone
for now when computer is idle - using 24-bit sound with 96kHz rate
vchanmode=fixed, adjusted pulseaudio, rebooted, and no constant clicks
here. There are still small hangs for short periods on visual activity
when switching desktops launching applications etc.

I noticed however a slowdown of visual smoothness (i.e. Blender,
FreeCAD, KiCAD, even gzdoom) after switching from PCIe-x16 to
PCIe-x8/x8, then got to nvidia-settings changed OpenGL Settings /
Image Settings from Quality to High Performance and things got
smoother but still not smooth as before. Maybe there is something
wrong with nvidia / gpu driver causing these issues?

Thanks! :-)
Tomek

-- 
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info