FW: [linux-audio-user] snd-hdsp+cardbus=distortion -- the sagacontinues (cardbus driver=culprit?)

[Ivica Ico Bukvic]

(I am forwarding this issue to the linux-pcmcia due to fact that it pertains
to the PCMCIA stuff)

Hi all,

NOTE: I am cc-ing this to the kernel list in hope someone there might have a
better insight in this. For the kernel people who intend to respond to this,
I would greatly appreciate it if you could CC me, as I am not subscribed to
the kernel list.

Summary:
snd-hdsp (RME Multiface cardbus pro-audio soundcard) works in Linux but the
sound is trashed (distorted). In Windows on the same notebook, everything
works fine. The problem has been now reported on 2 completely different
notebooks (Acer 1400 with 02 cardbus and my eMachines m6805 with ENE CB1410
cardbus controller). I suspect at this point that the culprit is most likely
the cardbus driver (yenta_socket in my case).
---------------------


After digging some more I am absolutely confident that my problem with the
hdsp_multiface+laptop(cardbus) is definitely not only similar but identical
to the problem Tim Blechmann reported in January. The scary part is that my
laptop is completely different brandname than his and uses entirely
different cardbus (IIRC he has Acer 1400 with the O2 cardbus; I have
eMachines m6807 with ENE CB1410 cardbus).

I think that this now has to have something to do with the current state of
the kernel cardbus drivers (pcmcia-cs has not been updated since December so
I would assume that they are no better than the ones that are found in the
kernel) and possibly the updated hdsp driver (although not entirely sure on
this last one).

Here's the current scoop on the problem:

Windows XP -- stuff works great, everything as expected. The only thing is
that when the computer goes to standby/hibernate, upon resuming the sound is
all distorted (just like Tim reported it -- slower, full of artifacts, but
you can still discern the original sound's content); this most likely has to
do with the crappy BIOS my notebook has (esp. in respect to the ACPI and
APIC -- DSDT table is trashed etc.). After distortion occurs, overclocking
the computer seems to speed the sound up bringing it closer to the desired
playback speed but the artifacts remain. Miller Puckette suggested that
perhaps the hdsp is not getting proper clock info from the CPU, something
that I have not investigated as of yet as I do not currently have access to
an external equipment that would provide Word Clock functionality. Although
this also sounds a bit weird as the soundcard works just fine upon first
boot (prior to suspending the computer). No matter how many times I
reconnect the card and/!
or mess with it before suspending the computer, everything continues to work
as expected.

Linux:
Mandrake Community 10.0
Kernel 2.6.3
Plenty of RAM and other junk
IRQ for cardbus and hdsp is shared on 11 (them sharing the same irq IIRC
should be normal behavior)
Alsa 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 tested (1.0.2 came with the system, 1.0.3 compiled from
source)
Latest Jack and alsaplayer packages compiled from source

Hw:0 onboard via82xx
Hw:1 snd-hdsp

ACPI and APIC are disabled due to BIOS issues with the laptop and because
even with the pci=noacpi flag in lilo the system still freezes when
inserting cardbus. I saw somewhere a kernel patch that would enable use of
cardbus with a limited acpi presence (pci=noacpi) but have not tried using
it just yet mainly since presence of acpi should not have any positive
bearing on resolving this issue (if anything, it would make it even worse
due to IRQ shuffling).

Modprobing goes without a hitch, pcmcia service automatically starts, the
cardbus interface using yenta_socket driver. Snd-hdsp also works without a
hitch and configuring the soundcard is all ok (hdsploader, hdspconf,
hdspmixer all check-out fine).

aplay -D plughw:1 (or plughw:hw:1 forget the exact syntax - currently booted
into Windoze) <soundfile>  plays the sound distorted similarly like in
Windows after resume.

Jackd -d alsa -d hw:1 with various flags and sampling rates of either 44100
or 48000 works without any dropouts. Just like with Tim, no distortion is
coming through until the sound is played. During the sound playback, the
distortion is identical to the one during the playback without jackd.

Connecting simple clients like jack_metro plays stuff, but distorted.

Alsaplayer when connected via jackd also works but again distorted. I have
to put the playback at 200% speed to get the right "tempo" of the song but
the sound of the song's singer is now very high-pitched (chipmunk?).
Distortion persists no matter what.

Reconnecting cardbus and all that works but the distorted sound persists.

Hdspmixer shows the sound levels as expected and they reflect the fact that
the sound is being played slower than it should be and that it is distorted.

Messing with hdspconf during playback makes no difference. Adjusting the
sampling rate though does alter the sound of distortion when playing (just
like in Tim's case), but does not alleviate it.

/var/log/syslog lists no complaints and/or problems. (I will check more
thoroughly for the boot-time stuff).

I am aware of the fact that the BIOS is somewhat trashed (manufacturer's
fault) but not to the point where machine does not behave normally, esp. in
Windows.

Some have suggested switching distros, but my understanding is that Tim was
running gentoo and I am running Mandrake and we're both having the same
problem.

Tim, I believe also used 2.4 kernel without success, as well as pre-1.0 Alsa
drivers.

---------------------------------------

TODO:
1) provide detailed lspci
2) thoroughly check /var/log/syslog for anything suspicious
3) try pcmcia-cs (most likely won't work as Tim already tried that and it
made no difference on his laptop, also the package wasn't updated since
Dec.)
4) try playback with an external Word Clock source
5) provide downloadable examples of the distorted sounds
6) Pester alsa-dev, lau, and kernel/pcmcia people to death begging for help
:-)
7) Pester eMachines to update BIOS (I may retire before this one happens,
though)
8) Something else?

I would appreciate any help with this one especially now that we know that
the problem is not related to one particular notebook/cardbus controller.

I will provide additional info as soon as I get home (sometime early next
week).

Many thanks!

Best wishes,

Ivica Ico Bukvic, composer & multimedia sculptor
http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/
ico at fuse.net