SigmaTel STAC9205 Dell 1520 Mic very quiet

[jjmoore27]

Hi,

Thanks for the further advice. Editing the sound file, and restarting did change things (and much faster than a reboot too), but still too quiet. So ... I basically went through dell-m42, dell-m43, dell-m44, and also ref. m43 just gave the option of analogue input, and my mic didn't work at all. the other model settings, I couldn't tell any difference, except the ref gave a few extra settings (like 3D sound).
I turned on and off the extra switches you mentioned, but no difference. The only real difference I can make is the capture main switch, under the slider. I did originally think that the capture slider volume did something, but it doesn't. Only its switch does something, at the bottom of the slider. The capture switch is basically off or on (very quiet of course). Out of frustration, I just tried model values with the word "dell" in them from the Also doc ! Of course this made no difference.
It seems that the capture volume slider is not really doing anything .... could this be the real problem ?
The sound test worked fine. I put all sliders I can access to max when trying audio tests. Then I attempt to "sing" to the microphone, recording using KRecord.
Its our first wedding aniversary this weekend, and my wife too is "concerned" I'm spending too much time fiddling with Suse 11.0 !
Maybe its a real bug with Alsa ? Capture slide volume just doesn't work ? Is there a way to use the windows driver in linux ? ndiswrapper ? Or any other ideas ?
Thanks.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by jjmoore27

I basically went through dell-m42, dell-m43, dell-m44, and also ref. m43 just gave the option of analogue input, and my mic didn't work at all. the other model settings, I couldn't tell any difference, except the ref gave a few extra settings (like 3D sound).
I turned on and off the extra switches

I recommend you leave the dell-m44 in your /etc/modprobe.d/sound

A couple of nights ago, I played with my mic. I first had to setup my mixer to record sound, ... and for a good 10 minute I was stumped because my kmix was mis-configured, specifically under the "switches tab" which had "surround jack mode" set to "shared" instead of "independent". I don't even know what that means, but it was enough to stop my capability to record audio, until I changed to "independent".

[jjmoore27]

Yes, I'll leave the module on this setting. Though after Googling around a bit more, I'm tempted to try Ubuntu. Dell offers this as an option, hence I'd be surprised if the mic didn't work correctly with Ubuntu out of the box. Though I would of also thought that if they have solved the mic problem, the solution would work its way to Alsa ? Or even be better posted on the web ?

I just use my laptop for email, web surfing, and skype. I just don't like windows due to Microsoft's business ethics. One day everything will work on my laptop using Linux, and that will be great !

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by jjmoore27

Yes, I'll leave the module on this setting. Though after Googling around a bit more, I'm tempted to try Ubuntu. Dell offers this as an option, hence I'd be surprised if the mic didn't work correctly with Ubuntu out of the box. Though I would of also thought that if they have solved the mic problem, the solution would work its way to Alsa ? Or even be better posted on the web ?

I just use my laptop for email, web surfing, and skype. I just don't like windows due to Microsoft's business ethics. One day everything will work on my laptop using Linux, and that will be great !

Make certain as well, that you are not doing something silly, such as trying to use your mic with an application that is not properly setup. I recommend using a basic alsa record command ... ie play around with command lines like:
arecord -d 10 myrecording.wav
and
arecord -d 15 -f cd secondrecording.wav
and
if a KDE user, also played with krec and krecord

[jjmoore27]

I spent more time playing with settings, and using Krecord, but no luck. The mic was still too quiet.

So I thought I'd go for a radical change, and try Ubuntu. Dell offers this as an alternative OS, so I thought it should at least work with my Dell laptop.

Well I installed the latest 8.04 version, and took a look at the audio settings, and played around with basic recording. But it was still quiet ! Anyway, I installed a bunch of updates, and also skype from Ubuntu's repository, and .... wait for it .... it worked !

So why did it now work ? Well I took a closer look at the audio settings, and new slider called digital had appeared. I guess when I installed skype, perhaps a dependency was also installed which "added" this digital slider ? Anyway, the mic now works just as good in Ubuntu as in Windows. I'm not sure if the digital slider will make it into Suse or Fedora, but I'll stick with Ubuntu for the time being, as the three things I need (email, web browser, and skype) all work. I was surprised how easy it was to configure Ubuntu, although the install wasn't simple, and the auto installed didn't really work for me. I had to manually tell it to use my ext3 partitions. But apart from that, everything was pretty straight forward, even installing nvidia and b43xx wireless drivers.

I'll take a look at Suse again in the future though. I'm starting to understand now why Ubuntu is popular, it doesn't take much effort to get basic things working with it, which is a good thing for non-techie people.

Thanks very much for your time and effort with my mic problem though. Whatever is in Ubuntu code, hopefully will cross over into Suse at some point.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by jjmoore27

So I thought I'd go for a radical change, and try Ubuntu. Dell offers this as an alternative OS, so I thought it should at least work with my Dell laptop.

Well I installed the latest 8.04 version, and took a look at the audio settings, and played around with basic recording. But it was still quiet ! Anyway, I installed a bunch of updates, and also skype from Ubuntu's repository, and .... wait for it .... it worked !.....I'll take a look at Suse again in the future though. I'm starting to understand now why Ubuntu is popular, it doesn't take much effort to get basic things working with it, which is a good thing for non-techie people.

Glad to read it is working for you under Ubuntu.

I have a couple of friends, with whom I correspond with via email, who are big Ubuntu users. We try to help each other with our Linux experience.

Having typed that, I received an email within the past week from one of them, noting Skype did NOT work for them under Ubuntu. .... There have been other cases like this (with different applications), where things "just worked" for me under openSUSE, did not "just work for them" under Ubuntu. So while I am happy it "just works" for you under Ubuntu, I know for a fact not every one shares this experience.

My experience has sometimes some apps "just work" on one distribution, do not "just work" on another distribution. And often this is NOT because one distribution makes more effort to have it "just work" but rather it is a quirk of the configuration setup of individual distributions, and how they interact with applications. For example, often developers will develop on one distribution, but are not able to test their application on different distributions.

Anyway, my points are all mute, because this does work for you under Ubuntu Linux, and I am glad to read it works under Ubuntu. Far from me to disparage any Linux distribution.

If you ever do figure out what Ubuntu specific difference caused this to work for you, it would be nice if you could post that information here. Enjoy your Skype under Linux !!

[xiawinter]

I came to this thread from Google, and I'm not really quite understood of the details you guys discussed, but my mic doens't work either. I tried pulseaudio settings, it didn't help.

I googled many times, but they said pulseaudio doesn't work on suse11. and that's the difference between suse11 and suse10.3 on audio. my mic works in suse 10.3.

I'm now considering to remove all pulse rpms, but not sure whewher it works. afraid of making too bigs changes as I'm a new user and a business man who knows little about technology and no time on this as well.

wanna got some information from experts like you. thanks.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by xiawinter

I came to this thread from Google, and I'm not really quite understood of the details you guys discussed, but my mic doens't work either. I tried pulseaudio settings, it didn't help.

I googled many times, but they said pulseaudio doesn't work on suse11. and that's the difference between suse11 and suse10.3 on audio. my mic works in suse 10.3.

I'm now considering to remove all pulse rpms, but not sure whewher it works. afraid of making too bigs changes as I'm a new user and a business man who knows little about technology and no time on this as well.

I've read of users who removed pulse audio applications, and say audio worked better for them afterward. I have not had to do this myself, so other than repeat that, I can not add much there.

In truth, I can not provide any recommendation without wild speculation, unless I know more on your PC's hardware and software configuration. Can you provide more information, for example as noted in this thread (from an above post):
SigmaTel STAC9205 Dell 1520 Mic very quiet - openSUSE Forums