[pulseaudio-discuss] choppy sound (breaks video as well) when playing on PCI card

[H.S.]

Hello,

Since last several weeks, all audio on my Debian Squeeze system (kernel
2.6.26-2-686) is interrupted with short pauses, making sound choppy. It
affects video as well (mplayer, gxine, youtube, etc.). Videos (avi
files, youtube videos) and audio and also video telephony is not working
properly anymore.

I have pulseaudio version 0.9.14-2.

I have noticed that /var/log/syslog is filling with these message:
.
.
Apr 21 16:58:18 red pulseaudio[16441]: alsa-util.c: Device hw:0 doesn't
support 2 channels, changed to 1.
Apr 21 16:58:18 red pulseaudio[16441]: alsa-util.c: Cannot find fallback
mixer control "PCM".
Apr 21 16:58:18 red pulseaudio[16441]: alsa-util.c: Device front:1
doesn't support 44100 Hz, changed to 44099 Hz.
Apr 21 16:59:28 red pulseaudio[16441]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing
wakeup watermark to 40.00 ms
Apr 21 16:59:30 red pulseaudio[16441]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing
wakeup watermark to 80.00 ms
Apr 21 16:59:32 red pulseaudio[16441]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing
wakeup watermark to 97.01 ms
Apr 21 16:59:34 red pulseaudio[16441]: module-alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us
up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to
write! Most likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue
to the PulseAudio developers.
Apr 21 16:59:34 red pulseaudio[16441]: module-alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us
up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to
write! Most likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue
to the PulseAudio developers.
.
.
.

and so on.

I have also noticed that the "ALSA woke us up... " message in syslog
coincides with brief flashes in the pulseaudio volume control GUI. It is
as if the device for output was being closed and reopened.

Also, this problem does not occur if I send the audio my USB headsets
(Microsoft LX-1000). The problem occurs only when playing audio to my
PCI sound card, which is:
card 1: AudioPCI [Ensoniq AudioPCI], device 0: ES1371/1 [ES1371 DAC2/ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: AudioPCI [Ensoniq AudioPCI], device 1: ES1371/2 [ES1371 DAC1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


Anybody know how to solve this problem?

Thanks.

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