Audio output causes high CPU usage

[potati]

I’m not sure what it might be or when it started or if it was always here.
I’ve been using Manjaro for 6 months now and i noticed recently that my CPU usage is really high when i am watching videos or listening to Youtube Music.

Example :
watching a 4k video with audio i get constant 85-90% CPU usage
watching the same video without audio it goes down to 40-50% CPU usage

This gets annoying when i am trying to listen to music while coding as i have multiple web windows, apps, processes open.

Also Videos and Audio work perfectly with the same device on windows.

Specs:

Audio: Device-1: Intel CM238 HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
CPU : i7-7700HQ
GPU : GTX 1050 TI
RAM : 8GB

I’d be grateful if you could help me

[nikgnomic]

Welcome to Manjaro forum

Please post response to this command to show more information about your system

inxi -Fazy

I suspect there might be more than one thing causing such a large additional CPU load

Have you made any configuration changes for audio (or Firefox)?

Have you installed any new packages that may use audio recently?

[potati]

Hey, here’s my audio and cpu hardware information

CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-7700HQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake family: 6 model-id: 9E (158) stepping: 9 microcode: 84 
  cache: L2: 6 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 44817 
  Speed: 3400 MHz min/max: 800/3800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3400 2: 3400 
  3: 3400 4: 3400 5: 3400 6: 3400 7: 3400 8: 3400 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds 
  status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 

Audio:
  Device-1: Intel CM238 HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a171 class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.4.150-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.38 running: yes

I haven’t made any configuration changes either in firefox or chrome, the problem occurrs in both browsers. I’m not sure if i have downloaded any new packages that use audio, except maybe for kernel updates?

[nikgnomic]

System data is showing 2 incompatible sound servers running

  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.38 running: yes

Pipewire cannot support audio unless PulseAudio is removed and replaced, but it might impede PulseAudio functions

Use this command to stop, disable and mask Pipewire services

systemctl --user disable --now pipewire.socket pipewire.service && systemctl --user mask pipewire.socket

OR

Install the metapackage manjaro-pipewire to remove and replace PulseAudio

System data is incomplete so I cannot identify the specific onboard audio device
I can only narrow it down to one of 19 Asus audio devices
Search results for ‘CM238 HD’ | linux-hardware.org

[potati]

I tried both solutions that you proposed:

• Install manjaro-pipewire and replace it with PulseAudio.
• Or disable manjaro-pipewire and use PulseAudio only

Unfortunately both didn’t work.

If you don’t mind asking what are the 19 Asus audio devices you sent me?

I might try to reset manjaro to factory settings when i have some time.

[nikgnomic]

One of the 19 devices might be a match to the onboard audio device on your system. I cannot be more specific due to incomplete data

I would have expected that using only one sound server might reduce the excessive CPU load

The only other thing I can think of is to try using a later kernel version than v5.5
So I suggest you use this command to install kernel v5.10

sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux510

and reboot system to load new kernel

If you still have audio or CPU load issues with kernel v5.10, please post response to this command to show more information about the onboard audio device

sudo alsa-info.sh --upload

[potati]

Its true i was using a later kernel version so i updated it to v5.10.70-1 thanks to you.
That unfortunately didn’t work, still the same problem.

Here’s the response to the alsa-info website about the onboard audio device :
http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=3304d738d00e0eb872ac0d8853d1a4f82523a908

[potati]

Found the problem, it actually was plasmashell audio widget causing the high cpu usage.
The widget animates the output bar based on sound. Which for some reason causes high cpu usage.

Solution : Simply removed the audio widget.