Audio Stuttering/Glitch when Connecting Speakers & Multi-tasking

Issues & Assistance
1

Hi CachyOS Team,

I am experiencing a persistent audio glitch/stutter on CachyOS that does not occur on Windows 11. I am looking for advice on how to debug or fix this.

The Issue:

  • Symptom: Audio stutters for several seconds (glitchy sound).

  • Trigger 1: Occurs immediately when plugging in external speakers.

  • Trigger 2: Occurs while playing YouTube Music in a browser (heavy multi-tab browsing).

  • Comparison: This issue is non-existent on Windows 11 under the same workload.

System Specs:

  • CPU: Intel Core i5-12450H

  • Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma

  • Kernel: linux-cachyos (using bore-lt0 scheduler)

  • Audio Server: Pipewire (default)

Behavior: It feels like a brief CPU scheduling hiccup or a Pipewire buffer underrun when the system is under load or when the audio sink changes. I am using CachyOS with KDE and the BORE scheduler.

Has anyone encountered similar issues with the 12th Gen Intel hybrid architecture or Pipewire settings on CachyOS?

2

me personally im on a ryzen 5 5600x but i got glitchy audio too, although only when playing arc raiders and having spotify on in the background. i hear little fuzzy pops in the background, the music and ingame audio itself is fine.

3

I had a slight pop on my steelseries. This helped me understand it.

Pipewire has a “top” like monitor you can run with:

pw-top

Play some music or games, anything listed under WAIT / BUSY / ERR FORMAT ?

4

BTW 1 us (µs) = 0.000001 seconds

5

I’m not happy about that glitch.

6

I tried installing TUXEDO OS and didn’t encounter this problem.

7

For me it was a Bluetooth issue, but since today everything just works. :person_shrugging: