Hi,
I have MSI GX720 notebook. I’ve installed opensuse 11.2 and can’t get external mic to work. Internal one is working fine. Does anybody has some hint what to do?
Here is output of alsa-info.sh
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=8901fb099327362ded72907b44e9cdd13c79a91f
If you have the internal mic working, then you are doing well. Internal mics are typically much more difficult to get working than external mics.
Typically one has to sort the mixer. What I recommend you do is set up your mixer such that your internal mic works. Then take a screen dump of those settings. This is important so you have a good record of what settings work with the internal mic, so you can always go back to that “baseline” later.
Now when I look at your mixer settings from the script you ran, I note:
!!Amixer output
!!-------------
!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [Intel]
Card hw:0 ‘Intel’/‘HDA Intel at 0xf8ef8000 irq 22’ Mixer name : ‘Nvidia MCP78 HDMI’
Simple mixer control ‘Line’,0
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Mic’,0
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Mic Boost’,0
Capabilities: volume
Front Left: 0 [0%]
Front Right: 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [30.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [30.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [30.00dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [30.00dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,0
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Line’ ‘CD’
Item0: ‘Front Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,1
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Line’ ‘CD’
Item0: ‘Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Int Mic’,0
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] -34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Int Mic Boost’,0
Capabilities: volume
Front Left: 0 [0%]
Front Right: 0 [0%]
You need to sort which of the settings (Mic, Front Mic, or Line) is specific to your external Mic. You also need to ensure that your capture settings for that Mic are NOT set to zero, nor should the boost be at zero.
If using KDE4, note you can add extra controls via the channel entry in the kmix menu.
Hmm, but where can I set it? I’m using Gnome and it seems to me that 11.2 changed to use pulse mainly and there are much less possibilities to set something than it was in 11.1. There are only Sound Preferences where I can choose if I want to use Microphone 1, Microphone 2 or Line-In. Microphone 2 is the internal one which is working. If I select Microphone 1 than nothing is recorded.
Then there is command line alsamixer and sound in yast. Alsamixer says that default is pulseaudio ad everything set in yast is immediatelly forgotten. 
I’m a KDE user, not a gnome user. One of the reasons I prefer KDE over Gnome is because recently it has been much smoother in terms of control over one’s audio (from my perspective). The lack of a good mixer in gnome is a prime example.
You can control all settings from the command line with amixer, if necessary. “man amixer” gives more detail.
Thanks for your help. I had to change Channel in alsamixer from 2ch to 4ch and then it started to work.
Congratulations on sorting this.
I confess changing the channel selection from 2ch to 4ch is not an option I would have guessed.