re: sound issues in -CURRENT

hello, i've searched the web for hours and hours and only found one hint
of evidence that i'm not the only one with the following problem. i
found this post from several months ago that details the same problem
i'm having:

--- snip ---

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 18:45:49 +1000 
matti k <overclocker_at_optusnet.com.au> wrote: 


> On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:36:56 +0200 
> Eirik Oeverby <ltning_at_anduin.net> wrote: 
>
> > I might also point out that there are two distinct kinds of 
> > distortion happening: The click/pop/crackle kind of distortion, 
> > and one where a sound buffer is repeated over and over 5-10 times 
> > - as if the hardware has some kind of hickup. 
> > 
> > Again - this *only* happens in -CURRENT, not in -STABLE or in any 
> > other OS (tested OS/2, BeOS, Linux, winXX). 
> > 
> > Anyone? :) 
> > 
> > /Eirik 
> 
> I get the same pops/crackling but using a SB Live! 
> I think it started happening when I switched from 4.x to 5.x 
> The strange thing is that sound works fine after a reboot but some 
> hours after that I get the noises. It only happens with music 
> (mp3,ogg). 


I tried a sound card with a CS4630 chip and still got the same thing. 
Strange that it takes a while for the noises to appear. Anyway, I was 
fiddling with settings using XMMS to play mp3's and found changing 
either "resolution" from 16bit to 8bit or changing "down sample" from 
1:1(44khz) to 1:2(22khz) fixes the problem. These settings are located 
under audio i/o plugins -> input plugins -> mpeg layer 1/2/3 player -> 
configure -> decoder. Also after using these settings (1:2(22khz)) for 
half an hour and then changing them back to defaults ... sound was 
good. I should add that running gkrellm (/ports/sysutils/gkrellm) 
_and_ having the cpu monitor enabled makes the noises much worse. 
Again, on my system this only occurs after several hours and of 
course if I reboot all is well. If nothing else at least I've found a 
way to avoid rebooting, I guess.

--- snip ---

the only difference is that i don't experience the looping sound
problem. the sound card i have is a sound blaster live 5.1 and i've also
tried a hercules muse xl, both of which experience the problem after
several hours of operation. i've tried the gkrellm quick fix and
disabled several krells that seems to help. the downsample thing seems
to work too. i'm just wondering if there has been any development on
this issue since 5.2.1-RELEASE (what i'm currently using). here is a
full list of my hardware:

- AMD Duron(tm) Processor _at_ 1.2GHz
- 128MB PC133 RAM, 256MB PC133 RAM, totalling 384MB
- 4.3GB Fujitsu hard drive (Ultra-ATA 66)
- 20.2GB Maxtor hard drive (Ultra-ATA 100)
- 50x max IDE CD-ROM drive
- 40x12x48 LITE-ON CD-R/RW drive
- SiS 7012 PCI sound card (integrated, disabled)
- Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
- GeForce 4 Ti 4200 w/64MB DDR VRAM w/TV-out (latest nvidia drivers
- SiS900 10/100 ethernet card (integrated)

thanks,

- ryan