Hi,

I'm running Slackware 10.2 and if I use skype 1.3 people on the other side just hear my voice really dammaged, delayed and ever worse, like if I was drunk.. very slow and fragmented..

If I ran older versions the problem just disappear.

Does anybody has the same problem?

I've noticed the same problem on my brother's pc.

My one is a atlhon XP with motherboard ASUS A7n8x deluxe soundcard
00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce Audio Processing Unit (rev a2)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AC97 Audio Controler (MCP) (rev a1)

My brother has another pc with Intel PentiumD Core Duo and he noticed the same problem.

Any ideas?

apparently, it is caused by Internet Connection problems.

deltatux

Same problem on gentoo with kenrel 2.6.17

I've Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz, Asus P4P8X Motherboard with Intel AC97 Controller (intel8x0).

All sound softwares are ok except for skype 1.3 (1.2 works fine) either alsa or oss mode.

Apparently, I disagree with you.

I understand that it works for you. I also know that it doesn't work at all for me on my Slackware system while 1.2.0.18_API is absolute perfection on this system. It has nothing at all to do with connection trouble.

perfect description!

In my case it's slackware with kernel 2.6.18 and the "soundcard" is a skype-certified USB-headset (C-Media chip). Probably not a sound-hardware issue, right ?

Daniel

Well, I have the same problem with the new Skype version on my SuSE 10.1.

And no! It's not a network connectivity problem as the old version of Skype works fine!

The problem is exactly as you describe it but, I get the problem after a while - not immediately after boot or login. Also, it's even worse when connected to another Linux Skype user with the same Skype revision.

I'm running a 2GHz AMD but my guts feeling is that this is a runaway process that consumes to much CPU.

As the network connex are 100% but the sound is bad, it's either to much voice processing going on or, the cou is occupied elsewhere.

My guess is the latter but I can't see my Linux box being overly loaded.

As the problem is 100% gone after restoring the old Skype Linux version, my verdict must be tagged to the new release.

I tried different CPU's ( boxes ) both with about 1.6 to 2.0 GHz AMD as well as an Intel 1.63GHz laptop.
Four different soundcards with different soundchips.

So, I'm currently running the old version of Skype again. Pity pity...

Been looking at this a bit further.

After letting the Skype app running for a couple of hours, when making a call with it, the amount of CPU and CPU cache used hits the roof.

After doing this twice ( to echo123 ), the CPU use became "normal" at the third attempt, and the fourth.

This is by no means any exhaustive test but... Something in the Skype app wreaks havoc with the running of Linux kernel while being kept running without any calls. Activating Skype again seems to "cure" it... Dooh!?

So, this is not a network or connectivity problem! <PERIOD> The question of the presence of a bug is what's left!


Cheers

Dan / M0DFI

I'm having the same problem as well.
Slackware-11, kernel 2.6.18, acer laptop with intel-hda sound chip, core duo cpu

Have you noticed that you can hear the other person's voice perfectly, but not the other way round?

Which Alsa driver versions are you using? I'm running 1.0.13...

Not that it's going to be a surprise for any of you on this forum, but I'm also experiencing some sound quality problems with Skype on Linux.

Background:
The computer is a Sony Vaio TX3 running the following software:
Linux Slackware 11
Kernel 2.6.18
Alsa 1.0.13 and 1.0.12-4.05b (provided by realtek)
Skype 1.3.0.53

The computer is built on the Intel ICH7-platform and the soundcard, recognized by the intel-hda-driver, is reported by lspci as:



It seems to be an ALC262 according to what the driver reported in the dmesg:



I tried forcing it to basic mode, and got a few more mixer controllers, but the sound quality in skype was all the same.


Experiences:
When I call the echo service I can hear the voice pretty well (it's not pure, but works), but anything I record comes back in very bad quailty. It's almost impossible to hear unless you know what you said. When I call someone on my list I can hear them, but what they hear of me say appears to be even worse than on the echo service.

Testing:
I've been testing with different versions of the alsa-driver but all with the same noisy result.

When I recorded my own voice with arecord -f cd > test.wav, it sounds very good.

Despite the successfull test above, to really ensure nothing was wrong with my built in soundcard I also bought and tried a usb-soundcard. However the result was the same in Skype.

Skype 1.3.0.30 works on my other Linux computer but it doesn't work any better on this one.

Skype 1.2.0.18 doesn't work any better either.

This machine is windows/linux dualboot and in windows it works like a charm with both sound and a usb-webcam.

I tested the windows version of skype in wine 0.9.23. I can hear better than in the Linux version, but can't be heard very well (but it's better than on Linux too). However the program usually crashes after about 10-20 seconds. I've tried both alsa and oss (oss seems to work better) and with different sound settings in winecfg.

There are some .asoundrc settings that can be found on this forum too, and I've tested but with no success.

Nicklas Björk found the solution to our problem!
in short (2 kernel parameters need to be adjusted):

>Processor type and features --->
> Preemption Model (Preemptible Kernel (Low-Latency Desktop))
> Timer frequency (250 HZ)

I repeat this here just for the guys lead to this thread by search engines.
It's now all in one place :-)

Nicklas, great work. Thanks!
Daniel