Sound problems: Is it caused by udev?

[Chuck Anderson]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:31:41PM +0100, MartinG wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
> <ivazqueznet at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That would be the kernel (well, ALSA, really) module loading and
> > initializing the sound card.
> 
> Ok, so on my laptop ("Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6
> Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)"),
> this seems to be one of the problems with sound: Every time an app
> wants to play something, the alsa module
> is initialized (I guess), causing this "popping noise".
> 
> Please let me know if I can provide more details

This sounds like the power saving mode of the sound card is enabled.  
If I enable this on my laptop, I get a pop/click for every system 
sound or other sound.  It basically makes GNOME sound events useless, 
because by the time the sound card "wakes up" from power save mode, it 
is too late to actually hear the intended sound.  Instead you just 
hear the ugly click, and then another click a few seconds later as the 
sound card enters power saving mode again.

Now, I believe that power saving is NOT enabled by default for sound 
cards for this exact reason.  However, I have been using a custom ACPI 
script in /etc/acpi/actions/battery.sh to handle power saving when 
changing from AC to Battery which enables power saving on a bunch of 
devices, turns laptop_mode on/off, etc.