esd problem with linux 2.4.0-test8 and >= 128M

From: John M. Flinchbaugh (glynis@butterfly.hjsoft.com)
Date: Sun Oct 01 2000 - 12:30:56 EST


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is there something magical about the memory size of 128M of ram in the
kernel, on this system, in the sound driver, or in esound?

i recently upgraded my inspiron 3800 from 96M (32 + 64) to 192M (64 +
128), and now playing mp3s, wavs or any other digital sound through
esound is noisy (pops, or even at times an effect like the music is
being paused and played several times a second...making the song play
approximately at half the speed but not bending pitch at all).

i tried swapping the ram in their slots, but that made no difference.
what does seem to make a difference is the kernel's perceived memory
size. if i boot linux with mem=127M it works fine, but with mem=128,
it causes the popping.

i even tested the 127M setting with the 64M sodimm in slot
a, so it is definitely using both pieces of ram together successfully.

another interesting observation is that running xmms (mp3 player) on
another machine and pointing that player at the esound daemon
laptop plays fine, even when the kernel sees full memory. xmms was
told to play to a remote host (the laptop).

at full memory, playing directly to the audio device, using play (for
wav) or mpg123-oss (for mp3) works fine too with no popping or
distortion.

this leads me to believe that having 128M of ram or more somehow
effects the localhost networking since xmms, esdplay, mpg123-esd all
connect to esd on tcp port 16001. the other computer connected to esd
from remote on the same port, but didn't exhibit the problem.

to check the ram, i did recompile a kernel (make -j 2 bzImage) with no
problems.

i'm sending this to many people, so some of this information may not
be interesting to some, but i'm hoping maybe someone's seen it before
or knows the right questions to ask to lead me to the solution.

please email with any questions.

here are the full specs of everything i can think of:
- -- Versions installed: (if some fields are empty or look
- -- unusual then possibly you have very old versions)
Linux density 2.4.0-test8 #1 Sun Sep 10 18:39:41 EDT 2000 i686 unknown
Kernel modules 2.3.16
Gnu C 2.95.2
Binutils 2.10.0.26
Linux C Library 2.1.94
Linux C Library 2.1.94
Dynamic linker ldd (GNU libc) 2.1.94
Procps 2.0.6
Mount 2.10o
Net-tools 2.05
Console-tools 0.2.3
Sh-utils 2.0i
Modules Loaded allegro audiobuf opl3 uart401 midi ac97
soundbase sndshield af_packet parport_pc lp parport irtty irda autofs4
serial_cs 3c574_cs ds i82365 pcmcia_core rtc nls_iso8859-1 nls_cp437
vfat fat serial isa-pnp cpia_usb cpia videodev uhci usbcore isofs
ide-cd cdrom apm

debian unstable (woody)
linux 2.4.0-test8.
opensound oss drivers for maestro 3 (3.9.3q 24 Sept 2000)
dell inspiron 3800 p3-600
debian packages:
        esound 0.2.19-5
        xmms 1.2.3-helix1
        mpg123 0.59r-6

- --
____________________}John Flinchbaugh{______________________
| glynis@hjsoft.com http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~
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