More information about this. The mentioned commit fixes just the messages apparently, but not the actual problem which is elsewhere. The complete fix consists of 3 patches: the above in comment#7, and also 22d948a2d97434192018bdabaf0a50cda7f994be and 38cc9b607f85017b095793cab6c129bc9844f441 from qemu-kvm git tree (both applies and applicable for 0.12 as well as 0.13).
** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #588899 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=588899 ** Also affects: qemu-kvm (Debian) via http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=588899 Importance: Unknown Status: Unknown ** Tags added: alsa ** Tags removed: windows -- sound broken in qemu 0.12.x https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/510612 You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. Status in QEMU: New Status in “qemu” package in Debian: New Status in “qemu-kvm” package in Debian: Unknown Bug description: In qemu 0.12.x there is a jitter when sound is played by guest Windows XP SP2. Also there are warnings on console: alsa: Unexpected state 1 alsa: Unexpected state 1 and qemu tries to eat 100% cpu. According to strace it polls alsa device continuously: futex(0x849e60, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1 select(23, [6 10 12 20 22], [18], [], {1, 0}) = 1 (out [18], left {0, 999997}) poll([{fd=18, events=POLLOUT|POLLERR|POLLNVAL}], 1, 0) = 1 ([{fd=18, revents=POLLOUT|POLLERR}]) write(2, "alsa: "..., 6) = 6 write(2, "Unexpected state 1\n"..., 19) = 19 The bug appears with ac97 and es1370 guest sound devices (i didn't test others). With OSS host sound driver there are no warnings and consumption of cpu by qemu is normal, but jitter in the sound is still there.