I have an issue with sound during music and sometimes video playback. Usually it fades out (gets quieter) and then fades back in a couple of seconds later. This happens randomly maybe a couple of times in an hour or two, but can sometimes go several hours without issue. It has happened with quodlibet and mocp (audio - mostly ogg, some mp3) and with vlc (video - mostly mp4/m4v). I don't use other music/video software enough to notice it there.
During heavy load (like emerging packages), the sound will sometimes stutter or even stop and then restart a few seconds later. The computer is a few years old, but this has not happened in the past. I found somewhere the suggestion to add the following options to /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf options snd-hda-intel vid=8086 pid=8ca0 snoop=0 The fading out/in *seems to be* less frequent since doing that. But that is my subjective feeling, not based on data. Any ideas on what might be wrong and how it can be fixed? ** System ** Window Manager = PekWM kernel = Linux sys76 3.18.11-gentoo #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 9 13:56:02 EDT 2015 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8400 @ 2.66GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux ** Hardware Info ** lspci reports: Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller Modules, from lsmod | grep snd: snd_hda_codec_idt 39744 1 snd_hda_codec_generic 39746 1 snd_hda_codec_idt snd_hda_intel 17007 2 snd_hda_controller 13712 1 snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec 68033 4 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller snd_hwdep 5373 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 63521 3 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller snd_timer 15422 1 snd_pcm snd 49995 11 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel ** Software ** [I] media-sound/pulseaudio Installed versions: 5.0-r7(03:35:44 PM 04/08/2015)(X alsa alsa-plugin asyncns bluetooth caps dbus gdbm glib gtk ipv6 orc qt4 ssl tcpd udev webrtc-aec -doc -equalizer -gnome -jack -libsamplerate -lirc -neon -oss -realtime -system-wide -systemd -test -xen -zeroconf ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64" ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="64 -32 -x32") [I] media-plugins/gst-plugins-pulse Installed versions: 0.10.31-r1(0.10)^t(12:55:06 PM 04/11/2015)(ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64" ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="64 -32 -x32") 1.4.5(1.0)^t(04:27:00 PM 04/05/2015)(ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64" ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="64 -32 -x32") [I] media-sound/moc Installed versions: 2.5.0(05:50:51 PM 04/12/2015)(aac alsa cache ffmpeg flac mad magic unicode vorbis -curl -debug -jack -libsamplerate -modplug -musepack -oss -sid -sndfile -speex -timidity -tremor -wavpack) (I removed Quodlibet recently for unrelated reasons.) Thanks for any and all help and advice. -- Chris Spackman GNU Terry Pratchett