Audio software problem?

[bigjohn]

I've not long finished re-installing 2006 (boxed set DVD edition).

 

I've left it pretty much "as is" after considerable problems with kde 3.5.2 (which I think were nvidia driver related).

 

So I'm gonna stick with kde 3.4.2 using the 7676 nvidia driver (it was the 8756 version that seemed to be a problem).

 

Unfortunately, now I seem to have an audio problem and don't know where too start looking.

 

The problem? Well I wanted to listen to a specific track from a CD (normal music one). During the playback, the track started "skipping", then eventually it stopped completely, and at the same time the whole GUI froze (mouse/cursor movement had been getting "jerky"). Plus when I tried to ctrl+alt+backspace nothing happened.

 

About 3 or 4 minutes later, things started to happen again and the X server shut down. I checked the actual CD - though if it was just the disc, surely the rest of the GUI wouldn't have shown such symptoms.

 

So, I then thought that I'd rip the disc to file with Sound Juicer (I rip in FLAC format for my portable music player) - as far as I can tell, the CD ripped OK.

 

I then opened amorak and started playing the same track, but then started getting the same symptoms - I was busy with other stuff, so left it alone for a while, eventually just switching off the speakers.

 

A couple of hours later, I check the system and it seems fine.

 

Where or what should I start looking at ? I've never experienced these kind of symptoms before with either the applications (Kscd or amorak), this (2006 powerpack) or earlier versions of mandriva/mandrake.

 

TVM in advance of any assistance/guidance you may be able to offer.

 

regards

 

John

[ffi]

I´m trying Cooker now and had similar problems which started randomly but only when playing sound, didn´t matter through which app. flash, kaffeine, realplayer, videolan. Everything stopped (ie the sound would stop),the mouse would freeze and the keyboard wouldn´t take any input. But I had this problem only with a particular kernel (2.6.17rc1), I never did have the patience to wait for more than 30-40secs and would reboot.

 

Maybe you should try updating

Edited April 17, 2006 by ffi

[scarecrow]

Both of you- try disabling (F)Arts.

And I don't think the current Mandriva initscripts (and structure) will allow proper usage of kernel 2.6.17 RC1 (or 2.6.16.X).

Edited April 17, 2006 by scarecrow

[ffi]

Both of you- try disabling (F)Arts.

And I don't think the current Mandriva initscripts (and structure) will allow proper usage of kernel 2.6.17 RC1 (or 2.6.16.X).

 

 

I had Arts already disabled 2-3 days after installing as it kept crashing all the time and it drove me crazy :P

 

2.6.16 works fine for me, been using it for 2-3 weeks, what sort of problems would you expect? I really want to get the ntfs working without Captive (though I didn´t feel like looking into it now)

[bigjohn]

Both of you- try disabling (F)Arts.

And I don't think the current Mandriva initscripts (and structure) will allow proper usage of kernel 2.6.17 RC1 (or 2.6.16.X).

Hum? I'm not sure how I'd achieve that - I'm presuming that as I do have a 2.6 kernel then it'd use ALSA.

bash-3.00$ uname -r

2.6.12-18mdk

bash-3.00$

Though it's nowhere near 2.6.16 or .17 as mentioned above or did you mean 2.6.12-16 or -17?

 

regards

 

John

[ffi]

Arts is in ¨COnfigure your desktop¨-> sound-> sound system-> uncheck ¨enable the sound system¨

 

I believe the ALSA driver is somewhere nestled into the kernel, so try another one. BTW just know I was trying to overclock my videocard and ran into the same problem, just as soon has I hit the button to go...

 

Anyway I say try a different kernel and you´ll get a different set of audio drivers to go, you just have to go to the hell off reinstalling a new kernel module for your video card though :P

[bigjohn]

Funny really, I also posted to my LUG list (they don't usually answer that quickly), but someone said to fire up a terminal and run

top

and then see what happens when I run amarok (I didn't try Kscd).

 

So I did that, and although I don't follow all of the output, the cpu initially showed 95% and 10% for memory usage - that was after about 30 seconds of playing a track (all my music is ripped as FLAC as I can use flacs in my Rio Karma).

 

After about 2 or 3 minutes, the cpu had dropped to about 50% but the memory was showing well over 90%

 

Both of these (what I suspect is) incredibly high figures, suggests that all's not well.

 

If I try playing a track with JuK, it's like 0.7% cpu and 3.3% memory i.e. relatively insignificant numbers.

 

I tried disabling the arts, as you suggested but the "top" command still shows "artsd", which I presume is the arts daemon ????? The sound still plays though (well it's still playing "Lunny and Terence" by CarterUSM as I type this).

 

I wonder how I find out whats munching all the cpu and memory resources when Amarok is running (and presumably Kscd as well, though I haven't checked that)?

 

regards

 

John