problems with audio in fedora 16

[molossus]

after updating to kernel 3.2.7 in fedora 16, i been having problems with audio,

1) the volume levels are way shifted to the right, by that i mean, 0 starts at 50% , and 50 is at 100%, well not even 100%, i had to open volume settings and go past 100% to get it to 100,
2) whenever i plug in my headphones , and then take it out, a loud popping noise is heard.
3) when i am listening to music and then plugin a usb device, the volume gets a little high and then comes to normal levels, it seems like when something is processing , it affects the volume,
another example: in kernel 3.1, you could listen to music and also watch youtube and the audio levels stayed the same, but in kernel 3.2.7 seems like pluggin in usb devices or opening another video interrupts audio

my laptop is a HP dv2500
here is the info of lspci

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (secondary) (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
07:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
08:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
08:09.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
08:09.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
08:09.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)

i am booting to kernel 3.1 because thos popping sounds are annoying and loud. is there some config file that i can modify the sound settings for kernel 3.2.7 for it to work like kernel 3.1

thank you for your time.

[Fenrin]

I can recommend oss4 sound server instead of ALSA+pulseaudio. I just installed it under Fedora 17 alpha and it works fine.

to compile it from source:

yum remove pulseaudio
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gtk2-devel gcc-c++ make binutils glibc
wget http://www.4front-tech.com/developer/sources/stable/gpl/oss-v4.2-build2006-src-gpl.tar.bz2
bunzip2 -c oss-v4.2-build2006-src-gpl.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
cd ./oss-v4.2-build2006-src-gpl
mkdir ./built
cd ./built
../configure
make
su
make install

as mixer, you can use ossxmix. As alternative to compiling it, you can also use the (commercial licensed) binary packages here. It's not only easier to install, but also easier to uninstall it, in case if it doesn't work correctly.
I use a XFCE version of Fedora. Could be that many gnome 3 apps depend on pulseaudio.

[erdahlj]

Just installed the Fedora 16. Had the same problem with Ubuntu. Sound only comes out of the little subwoofer on my Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop. It sounds terrible and I would like an easy fix. Thanks for the help!