[Realtek ALC889A] Playback problem, stuttering audio & video

Does adding:

options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1

to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf resolve this symptom?

I'v tried:
in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1
or
options snd-hda-intel bdl_pos_adj=32

also try
in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to change
default-fragments = 5
default-fragment-size-msec = 25

the problem still present.

BTW i observe that stuttering is present on high bandwidth sound files
at the 64-128Mbps mp3s i have no problems with playback.

May be it'll helps:
from /var/log/messages
 Jun 6 11:42:18 lucid kernel: [ 4.037493] hda_codec: ALC889A: BIOS auto-probing.
Jun 6 11:42:18 lucid kernel: [ 4.038881] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/input/input5
Jun 6 11:42:18 lucid kernel: [ 4.051677] HDA Intel 0000:01:05.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
Jun 6 11:42:18 lucid kernel: [ 4.075714] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x67
Jun 7 01:11:59 lucid kernel: [ 6.458063] hda-intel: IRQ timing workaround is activated for card #1. Suggest a bigger bdl_pos_adj.
Jun 7 01:12:24 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 11 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:16:40 lucid kernel: [ 286.680101] CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 15000 nsec
Jun 7 01:26:20 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 19 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:32:28 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 36 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:33:11 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 12 events suppressed

" pulseaudio ratelimit.c: events suppressed" - continue collecting in messages while music playing.

also i found this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/479296
"the music got stuck on two notes repeated for two or three seconds at short distance intervals, then everything gets back to normal." - i have same problem.

a part of /var/log/syslog:
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Sucessfully made thread 1753 of process 1446 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Sucessfully made thread 1754 of process 1446 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Sucessfully made thread 1756 of process 1756 (n/a) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Supervising 5 threads of 2 processes of 1 users.

Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid pulseaudio[1756]: pid.c: Daemon already running.

Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Sucessfully made thread 1757 of process 1757 (n/a) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid rtkit-daemon[1450]: Supervising 5 threads of 2 processes of 1 users.

Jun 7 01:12:00 lucid pulseaudio[1757]: pid.c: Daemon already running.

Jun 7 01:12:02 lucid AptDaemon: INFO: Initializing daemon
Jun 7 01:12:07 lucid kernel: [ 14.231367] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
Jun 7 01:12:24 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 11 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:14:15 lucid NetworkManager: <info> Unmanaged Device found; state CONNECTED forced. (see http://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/191889)
Jun 7 01:16:40 lucid kernel: [ 286.680101] CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 15000 nsec
Jun 7 01:17:01 lucid CRON[1909]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jun 7 01:17:03 lucid AptDaemon: INFO: Quiting due to inactivity
Jun 7 01:17:03 lucid AptDaemon: INFO: Shutdown was requested

Jun 7 01:26:07 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
Jun 7 01:26:07 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
Jun 7 01:26:07 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.

Jun 7 01:26:20 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 19 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:32:28 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 36 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:33:11 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 12 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:44:40 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 24 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:50:00 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 1 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:53:52 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 7 events suppressed
Jun 7 01:55:16 lucid pulseaudio[1446]: ratelimit.c: 63 events suppressed

syslog

i solve my problem by installing linux-source package and
make kernel after "make localmodconfig && make localyesconfig"
i suppose the problem is in one of kernel modules...

I'm reporting the same bug. Though I should add my comments.

I've noticed this with and without killing pulseaudio. I usually notice it when streaming songs i.e. web radio / flash / youtube etc. On playback with local files it tends to run ok for a time then starts to skip / crackle after a few songs.

The bug affects me too. I had this in Lucid and so i upgraded to Maverick because I thought it was a kernel issue or something but it is still there and very annoying.
If it does help: I switched from Archlinux back to Ubuntu a few days ago and there audio was played normal.

Any suggestions what information we could report or what we should test? Are there ideas what could cause the problem?

I can also confirm that adding "options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1" does not fix the problem.

I've experienced this same problem since 10.04.
My system is built from a DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH motherboard with the ALC889, an AMD Phenom X4 9750 CPU, 4 GBs of RAM and a GeForce GTX 260-192.
I solved the problem by simply revoking the previously applied overclock from my CPU. After doing so, the skipping problems do not occur anymore.

Thank you for your answer Lars. I checked my BIOS settings and my CPU (Phenom II X3 720) was running at the normal 2.8GHz. I underclocked it to 2.7GHz, disabled AMD C1E and activated HPET. I don't know which of the modifications helped but until now I did not experience any problems. At last I can listen to music again under ubuntu :)

Great to hear it helped. It seems that underclocking is the only solution so far in my opinion. After overclocking my CPU again, the stuttering reoccurs. I can exclude HPET and C1E as the culprits; I now activated them and nothing's changed. Hope to see a fix for that soon, so nobody has to underclock his CPU to listen to music.

I have to correct myself. Somehow, underclocking the CPU is only a temporary fix, as the effect diminishes after some time. It is now reoccurring on the standard clock or even 200MHz less.

still have ploblems with ubuntu 10.10.
Lesser than with lucid but still exists in playback of flash video and mp3 even at 96kbps
hardware (2 computers):
cpu: AMD Phenom 2 x4 920 and AMD Phenom 2 x6 1055T
chipset: AMD780 and AMD785
ram: 4Gb and 8Gb
audio: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)

Same here. I get a lot static in 2 cases:
 - All the time when using gnash to play flash with sound.
 - During the more quiet sections of some MP3 and OGG files (pulseaudio)

Phenom II 955 BE
AMD 790X
4G RAM
Onboard Realtec 889

Disabling C1E worked for me.
Phenom 2 945(stock)/790gx

hi, i found that only mp3 playback (and video with mp3 streams) have a problems,
may be problem is in mp3-decoder not in alsa? Check it out.

Hi, I'm having this problem too, after upgrading from Lucid to Maverick.
Tried to install newer alsa drivers from alsa site, but somehow it didn't worked (I hadn't sound at all), so I restored default Ubuntu configuration.

Just added "options snd-hda-intel model=intel-alc889a" to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

Now, I've tried to compile kernel from linux-source with the same modules currently installed and the issue persisted.
I have seen in both cases this kind of output in /var/log/messages when skips occur:

Feb 3 00:38:53 PHENIIX4TMP1 pulseaudio[2372]: ratelimit.c: 20 events suppressed

This is with kernel 2.6.35-25.
I've installed a newer kernel from Ubuntu Kernel team, 2.6.35-26, and now there are less pulseaudio logs, but the issues(skips) are still present.

I've tried with mp3, wma and m4a (verified) files and youtube vids., and all of them have the same problem.
I have even tried aplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Phone-Ring.wav and I got 4 pulseaudio lines (and their respective skips)!
So it can't be related to decoders. That wav file had 4 skips during its about 2 seconds playback.

Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick x86_64, kernel 2.6.35-25, 2.6.35-26.
fglrx Version: 2:8.780-0ubuntu2

Phenom II 955BE (@3.2GHz, Stock Freq.),
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
Chipset AMD 790FX + AMD SB750
Realtek ALC889A codec (Detected as "tarjeta 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], dispositivo 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog]" by aplay)
8 GB DDR3 RAM.
Graphics card: MSI ATI Radeon HD4830

Just want to add this card has always given me a lot of problems with (K)Ubuntu (specially "scratch" in playback), but compiling ALSA from sources used to work until maverick.

Has this bug been abandoned? Why is it marked as "Incomplete"?

options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=0 single_cmd=1

After I add this sound is working great
taken from: http://answerpot.com/showthread.php?1628110-hda-intel+(ALC889)+-+sound+loops%2Frepeats+continuously%2C+and+general+brokenness

@Andres could you file a separate bug, please? ubuntu-bug alsa-base

I get these same issues on 12.04 LTS 64 bit. I have a Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia sound system, which I have been told is really a realtek.

It skips video and audio. Only for a second. Actually, it doesn't skip so much as it plays a second or two over again, and the plays regularly.

I think my problems with sound has been solved since 12.04, now i have 13.10 and all is OK