I installed 12.1 x64 on my Lenovo Thinkpad X220 and found (for now ) 2 problems.
First, when the notebook resumes from suspend the sound is no longer working. It’s just staying silent, no software component complains about a missing output (so I assume the hardware itself is not “woken up” by the alsa modules or so?).
Second, the microphone is always “recording” some white noise. It doesn’t matter if it’s the internal mic or an external one. No, it’s not some voodoo with frequencies from other parts on the board since it works flawlessly in Windows. And it works if I add an USB-based headset (so basically adding another sound card). It also happens with arecord, so I guess that pulseaudio is not to blame this time :-).
Do you mean when you have the mic set to record, and you talk into the mic, all you hear is white noise ? Searching on the web for the X220 this mic should work.
There is a diagnostic script that one can run to obtain more information. What is the website address/URL provided (with information on your X220’s sound configuration) when you run (with X220 connected to the internet):
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
selecting the share/upload option …
My wife has an X220 but she has not yet installed openSUSE on it. She probably will do so over Christmas. I did boot it to the RC1 version of openSUSE-12.1 which I documented here: Purchase considerations for a new netbook - Blogs - openSUSE Forums and I noted there the mic controls were somewhat slim and might require some effort to configure. For example, on her x220 with openSUSE-11.4, the diagnostic script gave these settings (extracted portions relevant to Mic):
Welcome to openSUSE 12.1 "Asparagus" RC 1
........
.........
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 4286CTO
Product Version: ThinkPad X220
.........
.........
Kernel release: 3.1.0-rc9-1-desktop
.........
!!Soundcards recognised by ALSA
!!-----------------------------
0 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
HDA Intel PCH at 0xf2520000 irq 43
29 [ThinkPadEC ]: ThinkPad EC - ThinkPad Console Audio Control
ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw unknown
.........
.........
Codec: Conexant CX20590
.........
.........
ARECORD
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
........
.........
**!!Amixer output**
!!-------------
**!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [PCH]**
Card hw:0 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0xf2520000 irq 43'
Mixer name : 'Intel CougarPoint HDMI'
**Simple mixer control 'Capture',0**
Front Left: Capture 80 [100%] [6.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 80 [100%] [6.00dB] [on]
**Simple mixer control 'Analog Mic Boost',0**
Items: '0dB' '10dB' '20dB' '30dB' '40dB'
Item0: '20dB'
From which it is obvious that one must move up the Boost to a functional level and move the capture up to a functional level. What levels did you apply ? The levels that you see I have set on my wife’s X220 may NOT be the correct settings. That test was MONTHS back and I can not recall the details.
Also from my wife’s x220 it appears the mic is device hw:0,0 … hence did you try to record with the command:
arecord -vv -f S16_LE -c 2 -D hw:0,0 new.wav
and play it back with
aplay new.wav
Note I am assuming this is a 2 channel with ’ -c 2 ’ and if it is a 1 channel then it would be ’ -c 1 ’ . Pay attention to the arecord errors as they provide lots of useful information.
Also, have you removed pulse (as I note you reference pulse). If you have removed pulse, it is best I leave this thread and go back to lurker mode, as I do not remove pulse and I have no experience doing such. So please advise so we don’t waste each other’s time with recommendations of mine that are not relevant to a system with pulse removed.
) 2 problems.