Arch Linux

boticelli3

Member

Registered: 2022-12-28

Posts: 3

Internal Mic detected but not recording on Dell XPS 9710

Hello,

I have vanilla Arch installed with GNOME as the DE. For sound, I'm using Pipewire as the server. On fresh install, everything works fine but after the first reboot, the microphone doesn't record anything. It is indeed being detected and I tried unmuting too. The mic works fine on Ubuntu and Windows so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the mic itself but I can't use it in Arch. I tried with both, pulseaudio (because there seem to be more workarounds using that) and pipewire and for both it worked right after the fresh install but stops working after rebooting the first time. I've tried all the troubleshooting guides on the wiki and various forums but none of them helped me so I'm turning to you all.

$ arecord -lL

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
lavrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Libav/FFmpeg Library
samplerate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Samplerate Library
speexrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler
jack
    JACK Audio Connection Kit
oss
    Open Sound System
pipewire
    PipeWire Sound Server
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
speex
    Plugin using Speex DSP (resample, agc, denoise, echo, dereverb)
upmix
    Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8)
vdownmix
    Plugin for channel downmix (stereo) with a simple spacialization
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PipeWire Media Server)
usbstream:CARD=sofsoundwire
    sof-soundwire
    USB Stream Output
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 1: Jack In (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 4: Microphone (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ pactl info 

Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 471
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: boticelli3
Host Name: davinci
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.63)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.playback.2.0
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.capture.4.0
Cookie: 99d5:23b5

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,259

Re: Internal Mic detected but not recording on Dell XPS 9710

Make sure you do not have a Windows installation that is fast booting. Alternatively there have been some raciness issues with some modules in this space, see e.g. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=280078

boticelli3

Member

Registered: 2022-12-28

Posts: 3

Re: Internal Mic detected but not recording on Dell XPS 9710

Thanks. I made sure that Windows fast boot is not on and I even tried reloading the modules but nothing changed. The mic still doesn't record. Should I be looking for something particular?

MacTavishAO

Member

Registered: 2022-12-29

Posts: 11

Re: Internal Mic detected but not recording on Dell XPS 9710

Make sure sof-firmware package is installed and soundwire-intel module is loaded. You can either add it to /etc/modules-load.d or use "sudo modprobe soundwire-intel" to load it. I would prefer the former option. Ubuntu uses LTS kernel so installing linux-lts may also fix your problem.

boticelli3

Member

Registered: 2022-12-28

Posts: 3

Re: Internal Mic detected but not recording on Dell XPS 9710

sof-firmware is installed and soundwire-intel is loaded.

$ paru -Qs sof-firmware

local/sof-firmware 2.2.3-1
    Sound Open Firmware

$ lsmod | grep soundwire

soundwire_intel        53248  5 snd_sof_intel_hda_common
soundwire_generic_allocation    16384  1 soundwire_intel
soundwire_cadence      45056  1 soundwire_intel
soundwire_bus         118784  8 snd_soc_sof_sdw,regmap_sdw,soundwire_intel,snd_soc_rt715,soundwire_generic_allocation,soundwire_cadence,snd_soc_rt711,snd_soc_rt1308_sdw
snd_soc_core          389120  10 snd_soc_sof_sdw,soundwire_intel,snd_sof,snd_sof_intel_hda_common,snd_soc_rt715,snd_soc_hdac_hda,snd_soc_rt711,snd_soc_intel_sof_maxim_common,snd_soc_dmic,snd_soc_rt1308_sdw
snd_pcm               159744  13 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,soundwire_intel,snd_sof,snd_sof_intel_hda_common,snd_soc_rt715,snd_compress,snd_soc_core,snd_soc_rt711,snd_soc_rt1308_sdw,snd_hda_core,snd_pcm_dmaengine

I even switched to the lts kernel but the issue persists