Mic not working on Dell E6400, OpenSuse 11.2 fresh installation

English Multimedia
#1

Hello All,
I just had a fresh installation of Suse 11.2 on this Dell E6400 Latitude laptop and after that I was able to made the integrated webcam work , but no luck with internal mic.

ALSA URL
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=eada25ceb0d4749c572133297d1ff6ad64d6ba45

rpm -qa | grep alsa


alsa-utils-1.0.21-3.1.i586
alsa-plugins-1.0.21-3.3.i586
alsa-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-oss-1.0.17-25.2.i586
alsa-devel-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.21-3.3.i586

rpm -qa | grep pulse

pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libpulse-browse0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libxine1-pulse-1.1.16.1-7.6.i586
libpulse-devel-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libpulse0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.21-3.3.i586
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-module-lirc-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-0.9.19-2.3.i586
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.19-2.3.i586

rpm -q libasound2

libasound2-1.0.21-3.2.i586

uname -a

Linux linux-igob 2.6.31.12-0.1-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-01-27 08:20:11 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

I tried

 arecord -vv -fdat foo.wav

but, the file foo.wav doesnt have any recorded sound.

On the same laptop if Ubuntu 9.10 is installed, then mic works like a charm. Any help will be appreciated.

Cheers!!!
~S

#2

From the mixer in the panel make sure you have the MIC channel enabled and that it is not muted.
‘Configure Channels’

#3

The options selected in Mixer are as follows
Master
Front
PCM
Headphone
capture (it is selected )
Digital Mic (only volume controls)
PC Beep

There are few more options I can select but they are not shown on mixer.
Do I need to select anything more?

Cheer!!
~S

#4

If your sound is working ok generally it is more likely just a setting that you are overlooking.
Our resident sound guru is away at the moment, which doesn’t help.
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

#5

I tried all I can find about mic not working on suse and offered solutions here on the forum, but nothing seems to work for me. Seems like I hit the dead end. Am a newbie, so cant fiddle much without much of input from experts.
I hope that sound guru returns soon to take a shot at my problem.
No mic for me :frowning:

#6

Be patient. @oldcpu should be back tomorrow, if not today. But he was delayed in the US.

#7

Note your integrated mic is likely a digital mic. You do not have that selected, and you need to select the digital mic. I note in RED:

!!Amixer output
!!-------------
!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [Intel]
Mixer name : ‘Intel G45 DEVCTG’
Simple mixer control ‘Front Mic Jack Mode’,0
Items: ‘Mic In’ ‘Line In’
Item0: ‘Mic In’
Simple mixer control ‘Mic Jack Mode’,0
Items: ‘Mic In’ ‘Line In’
Item0: ‘Mic In’
Simple mixer control ‘IEC958’,0
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Digital Mic’,0
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,0
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Digital Mic’
Item0: 'Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,1
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Digital Mic’
Item0: 'Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,0
Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,1
Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Your mixer is setup to ensure the digital mic does not capture. YOU need to change that setting.

If you are using KDE you can add extra controls in kmix under "settings > configure channels ".

When testing your mic, please use:

  arecord -vv -fdat foo.wav

where “foo.wav” is any file name you select … ie it could also be “anyfilename.wav”. Reference: Microphone - openSUSE

#8

The digital mic flag needs to be fixed in ALSA configration. Try these:

Internal microphone on Dell Studio 1557 not working on 11.2 - openSUSE Forums

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/153963

I used the option in the second link, but you might wanna try the first link first - it’s easier.

#9

I have a Dell Latitude E6500 laptop and I am experiencing quite similar problems in Slackware 13.0:

[rdagold@slack13 ~]$ uname -a
Linux mhq 2.6.29.6 #3 SMP Mon Dec 7 15:01:06 CST 2009 x86_64 Intel(R) Core™ 2 Duo CPU T9600@2.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

I hope to be able to positively contribute to this topic and to receive some help from you all. :slight_smile:

Everything is fine here with this laptop, except that I am completely unable to record audio, either using the built-in microphone or an external one. I can do this under Windows 7, so the microphones are not defect. Audio output is ok, both for the built-in speakers and the external headset. I can listen to my mp3 in mpd/ncmpcpp and watch (HD) movies at youtube, for example.

Following advice I found at Archlinux, Ubuntu and Suse forums, I have run alsaconf and I changed /etc/modprobe.d/sound:

[rdagold@slack13 ~]$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-1

I have then tried to record sound using sox (rec) and arecord applications. Both of them returned perfectly (and annoyingly) clean WAV files. :frowning: I’ve also given Ekiga a try but it didn’t work either, as expected.

Afterwards, I have tried several different alsamixer configurations for my capture devices and tried to record sound both via the builtin microphone and via an external one. It was all to no avail. Here are two screenshots of (rather obvious testing) configurations that I attempted:

1)http://tinyurl.com/yb8wb33
2)http://tinyurl.com/yepnxw6

In case you prefer, here is the output of amixer:

Simple mixer control ‘Master’,0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 127
Mono: Playback 127 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Headphone’,0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 127
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 126 [99%] [0.75dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 126 [99%] [0.75dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘PCM’,0
Capabilities: pvolume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 255
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Front’,0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 127
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 127 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 127 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Analog Loopback’,0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Analog Loopback’,1
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control ‘DAC0’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 31
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘DAC1’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 31
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Digital’,0
Capabilities: cvolume
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 120
Front Left: Capture 120 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 120 [100%] [30.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Digital Input Source’,0
Capabilities: enum
Items: ‘Analog Inputs’ ‘Mixer’ ‘Digital Mic 1’
Item0: ‘Analog Inputs’
Simple mixer control ‘Import0 Mux’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 31
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Import1 Mux’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 31
Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,0
Capabilities: cenum
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’
Item0: ‘Front Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,1
Capabilities: cenum
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’
Item0: ‘Front Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,0
Capabilities: cvolume
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 3
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,1
Capabilities: cvolume
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 3
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

It is worth to note that the codec to be used is correctly assigned (IDT 92HD71B7X):

[rdagold@slack13 ~]$ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
Codec: IDT 92HD71B7X

The currently installed alsa packages in the system are:

[rdagold@slack13 ~]$ ls /var/log/packages/ | grep alsa
alsa-lib-1.0.18-x86_64-2
alsa-oss-1.0.17-x86_64-1
alsa-utils-1.0.18-x86_64-2

Output of lspci -vvnn

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:024f]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 21
Region 0: Memory at f6fdc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=55mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
Capabilities: [70] Express (v1) Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
ExtTag- RBE- FLReset+
DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+
MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes
DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr+ TransPend-
LnkCap: Port #0, Speed unknown, Width x0, ASPM unknown, Latency L0 <64ns, L1 <1us
ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; Disabled- Retrain- CommClk-
ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
LnkSta: Speed unknown, Width x0, TrErr- Train- SlotClk- DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Output of alsa-info.sh: http://pastebin.com/f214a29fa

I hope to have included all relevant information. I feel quite lost on what to try next. Thank you all in advance for any help/suggestions/orientation you may be able to provide me! ;)[/size]

#10

We typically don’t provide slackware support. I also suspect there are slackware users who know way more about sound than myself who may be able to provide guidance more applicable to slackware.

Still, the 1st thing I note is your alsa version is VERY OLD given the current version of alsa is 1.0.22.1 Your hardware is relatively new, and hence I recommend you update your alsa version.

Next, I note this in your mixer settings:

#!!Amixer output
#!!-------------

#!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [Intel]

Mixer name : ‘IDT 92HD71B7X’

Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch

Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1

Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘DAC0’,0

Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘DAC1’,0

Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘Import0 Mux’,0

Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘Import1 Mux’,0

Front Left: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Front Right: Capture 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [off]

Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,0

Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’

Item0: 'Mic’

Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,1

Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’

Item0: 'Mic’

Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,0

Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

Simple mixer control ‘Mux’,1

Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

Practically EVERYWHERE I look in your mixer, you have capture switched OFF. That guarantee’s your mic will not work.

You also have “mic” selected nistead of “front mic”. That suggests to me there is more than one mic input on your Dell E6400. Ensure you have the correct one selected.

And also, when testing for capture functionality, I recommend this test

 arecord -vv -fdat foo.wav

for testing capture, …

… don’t forget what I noted about updating your alsa version.

and finally, I recommend you go to a slackware forum for help and NOT here. Apologies, but I am over tasked as it is, and I really do not have the time to support both slackware users and openSUSE users.

Sorry.

#11

rdagold, upon reflection, I may have been a bit unduely harsh. … Please, let me rephrase what I quoted above in my previous post …

I can provide generic Linux help, but NOT specific slackware support. So if there is anything slackware specific (such as how to update to the latest alsa version in slackware) you are probably on your own. But in terms of interpretting the output of the diagnostic script, that I can do to try to help you!

Good luck!

#12

Thank you for your replies. I understand your point of view and I thought I made it clear that I was not asking for distro-specific advice. I stated that I used Slackware so that you wouldn’t have the work on giving me suse-specific instructions that would be completely useless in my case. In fact, I just posted my message here because this seemed to be an active topic on these particular E6400/6500 issues, which I didn’t find in the main Slackware community discussion boards.

I will look what is happening with my amixer. I am pretty sure everything is turned on and maximum volume in alsamixer (did you see the screenshots I included?) so there must be something weird happening.

Once again, thank you very much for your help. :slight_smile:

#13

There could be something weird happening, but if there is, maybe its slackware specific ?

Did you try switching the mic capture on with ‘amixer’ ?

You can type “man amixer” to learn how to use amixer.

However, even if you get the capture switched ON (which is essential) it is possible you STILL need to update your alsa version.

#14

rdagold, I am not 100% positive an update to the latest alsa is necessary for you, but it might indeed help, as the auto probe detection/configuration of the latest alsa is superior to the older alsa.

I note these settings from the alsa-configuration.txt file for 1.0.18 of alsa (which you have):

	STAC92HD71B*
	  ref		Reference board
	  dell-m4-1	Dell desktops
	  dell-m4-2	Dell desktops

now compare that to the model options from the HD-Audio-Models.txt file for 1.0.22.1 of alsa:

STAC92HD71B*
============
  ref		Reference board
  dell-m4-1	Dell desktops
  dell-m4-2	Dell desktops
  dell-m4-3	Dell desktops
  hp-m4		HP mini 1000
  hp-dv5	HP dv series
  hp-hdx	HP HDX series
  hp-dv4-1222nr	HP dv4-1222nr (with LED support)
  auto		BIOS setup (default)

… as you can see, clearly there has been more development on the STAC92HD71B* which might provide capabilities/auto-configurations which are not available in the older alsa version.

#15

Thanks again, oldcpu :slight_smile:

I have removed the slackware alsa packages and I have just compiled (and installed) the latest stable version (1.0.22.1) of alsa-lib, alsa-utils and alsa-driver available at alsa-project.org.

Things look better now, although the problem remains. In fact, I am unable to change two of the values through amixer.

Current amixer output:

[rdagold@slack13 ~]$ amixer | grep Capture
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
** Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]**
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
** Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]**
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 120
Front Left: Capture 60 [50%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 60 [50%] [0.00dB]
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 3
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 3
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 3
Front Left: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 3 [100%] [30.00dB]

(full amixer output: http://pastebin.com/f2c4203e1)

Current alsamixer screenshots (is it worth to be publishing them?):

1)http://tinyurl.com/yhbnsba
2)http://tinyurl.com/yznqv6s

#16

Did you try any of the other model options?

Possibly, but it does not help me as I do not use alsamixer, so I am not familiar with its gui. I’m a kde user so I use kmix.

Reference amixer, it should be possible to unmute those two capture settings that are off:

#Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB]** [off]**
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
#Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [off]
I think you need to work out the syntax for amixer to enable those.

amixer scontrols

will give you the controls available.

amixer scontents

will give you the controls, and also the mixer contents

I think you need to use the set, sset or cset command to control those settings. There are examples in the man page , if you type:

man amixer

Unfortunately I am not familiar with gnome, so I can not offer any gui based suggestions for gnome. In kde it is very easy with kmix.

#17

Hello OldCPU,
Viola!!! it works now. So In the Kmix, it selected Capture, Capture2, DigitalMic, InputSource, InputSource2 from the “Configure Channels” option.
I only selected(tick mark in check box) Capture and Capture2 was not selected(tick mark in check box.)
InputSource and InputSource2 were selected as DigitalMic.
One thing I faced was too much fo distortion and noice when I was recording, althought the background was almost negligible. So then I minimized the slider for Capture to 0 and unselected the Capture2. After doing so the recording was better. So as a second thought I was wondering as to what does the slider on Capture option do? So some sort of Boost or something. DigitalMic slider is however selected as max.
Everything seems to work now but just wondering as to if I have done the right configuration or not.

Thanks once again OldCPU for resolving this issue for me.

Cheers!!!
~S

#18

Right at the beginning I pointed you to the mixer and channels
Mic not working on Dell E6400, OpenSuse 11.2 fresh installation - openSUSE Forums
:slight_smile:

Happy you sorted it.

#19

Oh sorry caf4926, indeed my mistake to that I forget to put a word of thanks for you. Indeed you did mention and I being a slob that I didnt take the clue from it :slight_smile:
Thanks

Cheers!!!
~S

#20

No worries.
And don’t be too hard on yourself with the self criticism :slight_smile: