Built-in Microphone "dead"

English Hardware
#1

Hello all,

I would be grateful if someone had a quick look at the talsa output at tsalsa.txt - nopaste.com (beta) to let me know which road to follow for troubleshooting this issue.

I have recently loaded up the alsa drivers to get the sound in a good state, but I can’t see why this would not be valid for the microphone.

rpm -qa | grep pulse

pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.10-26.5
libpulse0-0.9.10-26.5
libpulse-browse0-0.9.10-26.5
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.10-26.5
gstreamer-0_10-pulse-0.9.5-54.1
libpulse0-32bit-0.9.10-26.5
libxine1-pulse-1.1.15-44.pm.0
libpulsecore4-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-module-lirc-0.9.10-26.5
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.10-26.5
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.16-57.1
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.10-26.5

rpm -q libasound2

libasound2-1.0.16-39.1

uname -a

Linux linux-wq2g 2.6.25.18-0.2-default #1 SMP 2008-10-21 16:30:26 +0200 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel

Thank you very much

kind regards

Alex

#2

Integrated mics are notoriously difficult to get working.

What do you mean by “loaded up the alsa drivers” ?? I don’t understand that. Also, can you provide the output of:
rpm -qa | grep alsa
The script output suggests you have a mixed bag (ie a mess) for your alsa apps:

Alsa driver: 1.0.18a        
Alsa lib: 1.0.16        
Alsa utils: 1.0.16

Now, I also note this for your mixer:
Amixer contents for card 0 [Intel]
‘Input Source’ ; Item #0 ‘Mic’ ; Item #1 ‘Front Mic’ : values=0
‘Input Source’,index=1 ; Item #0 ‘Mic’ ; Item #1 ‘Front Mic’ : values=0
‘Input Source’,index=2 ; Item #0 ‘Mic’ ; Item #1 ‘Front Mic’

amixer set ‘Mic as Output’,0 off
amixer set ‘Capture’,0 Capture 0 0%,Capture 0 0% on
amixer set ‘Capture’,1 Capture 0 0% off Capture 0 0% off
amixer set ‘Capture’,2 Capture 0 0% off Capture 0 0% off
amixer set ‘Digital Input Source’,0 Items: ‘Analog Inputs’ ‘Digital Mic 1’ Item0: ‘Analog Inputs’
amixer set ‘Input Source’,0 Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ Item0: ‘Mic’
amixer set ‘Input Source’,1 Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ Item0: ‘Mic’
amixer set ‘Input Source’,2 Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ Item0: ‘Mic’
Is your integrated mic an analogue or digital mic? Is it associated with an integrated web cam? If so, do you have the web cam setup yet? Is it he “front mic” or the “mic” you should be trying ?

I note from the script your PC has a STAC9228 hardware audio codec. I note this from the ALSA-Configuration.txt file:

 	STAC9227/9228/9229/927x
	  ref		Reference board
	  3stack	D965 3stack
	  5stack	D965 5stack + SPDIF
	  dell-3stack	Dell Dimension E520
	  dell-bios	Fixes with Dell BIOS setup

I also note this:

Hence you could try changing that file to:

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel 
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack

save the change and restart alsa driver with su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’ and test your mic. If “3stack” does not work, try replacing it with dell-3stack and restart your alsa (as before0 and test your mic. You could also try 5stack.

What are you using for a recording test? I typically use:
arecord -d 10 myrecording.wavand then a play back “myrecording.wav” with a nominal player.

#3

Thank you very much for the response. After trying your suggestions for the changes of the /etc/modprobe.d/sound with both front and back microphones without success I checked the alsa configuration as you suggested:

rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsa-tools-1.0.16-47.1
alsa-devel-1.0.16-39.1
alsa-driver-unstable-kmp-default-1.0.17.20081025_2.6.25.16_0.1-1.1
alsa-utils-1.0.16-35.1
alsa-plugins-1.0.16-57.1
alsa-oss-1.0.15-48.1
alsa-1.0.16-39.1
alsa-firmware-1.0.16-24.1
alsa-oss-32bit-1.0.15-48.1
alsa-driver-kmp-default-1.0.18.20081119_2.6.25.18_0.2-3.1
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.16-57.1

The laptop has a microphone alongside the integrated camera which works and my guess is that the “front” microphone is one of the three “classical” plugs (2 for external speakers and one the external microphone) on the front side of the XPS M1330. I have no problems with the sound.

Once again thank you very much for your time to review this

Many greetings

ajs15

#4

As far as I know, you should NOT install both alsa-driver-kmp-default and alsa-driver-unstable-kmp-default. Remove alsa-driver-unstable-kmp-default, and then reboot and test.

Also, it looks to me that your alsa-driver-kmp-default is inconsistent version with the rest of you alsa versions. ie you are mixing 1.0.18 with 1.0.15 and 1.0.16. IMHO that could also be a problem.

There is very specific and clear guidance here for updating one’s alsa on openSUSE-11.0. But one has to read it careful. Many users are careless and mess up the update: Alsa-update - openSUSE

Integrated mics are very difficult to get functioning. While I have the external mic on my new Dell Studio 15 working (after a patch created earlier this week by the alsa dev), I still do not have the integrated mics working on my new Dell.

#5

Dear oldcpu,

Thanks once more for the suggestion. Indeed I managed to get the external mic (front mic) working but not the built-in one using the 3stack option you suggested. The integrated camera works without problems as before. For the record the laptop was an XPS M1330 64bit with intergated webcam and microphone with a purchased linux 11.0 DVD package.

Once again thank you for your time,

Kind regards

ajs15

#6

I have yet to read of a Dell user running any Linux that has these integrated mics working.

I also always purchase the boxed DVD (even though I also always download the CD and DVDs, and then seed them via bittorent for a long time).

From what I have read, the Dell XPS M1330 is a nice laptop.

There is a BIG thread in this URL (below) of Dell XPS M1330 users exchanging notes on their experience running Linux on this laptop (most of them are Ubuntu users). Its possible one of them succeeded in getting the internal integrated mics to work (with it not being my laptop, I don’t have the energy nor time to go thru that thread from start to finish): Dell XPS M1330 Linux Users - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

#7

An update to this thread, 6-months later … The Internal Mics do work on the Dell Studio 15 with openSUSE-11.1 and 1.0.19 of alsa. I documented my success with this here: openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - Dead microphone – Dell 1525

I will update the openSUSE HCL for the laptop.