[linux-audio-user] HD noise with SB Live card

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Subject: [linux-audio-user] HD noise with SB Live card
From: Josh Green (jgreen_AT_users.sourceforge.net)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 23:02:19 EEST


The problem I'm having is most likely not Linux specific, but I only run
Linux so I can't test to see if it also occurs in other OSes.
The problem is that I'm getting quite a lot of noise (little bleeps and
static) in the digital sound output of my SB Live card. If I do a large
copy of a file or something to really give the hard disk a work out, any
PCM audio output becomes totally in-audible as it is overwhelmed by
noise.

I'm convinced that this noise is not being picked up from the sound card
via electro-magnetic interference. The reason I think this is because
this all started when I changed motherboards from one with a K6-2 to a
PIII. Also if I disable DMA on the hard disk (hdparm -d 0 /dev/hda) the
problem goes away completely. Of course not having DMA is a real drag
for real time audio work.

If anyone has some knowledge as to what could be causing this, I would
love to hear it. I'm not real familiar with how the SB Live transfers
audio internally. I'm curious if there is something broken with the DMA
controller on my motherboard or perhaps some sort of conflict. It almost
sounds like the audio buffer is getting directly trashed (noise isn't
mixed with PCM audio, it replaces it).

Right now I'm looking to just get another motherboard, but I would like
to avoid this if possible. Cheers.
        Josh Green


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