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Hey all.
I've been struggling with the ASUS Strix sound card mounted to the PCI-E slot and extremely low mic gain. The microphone works fine on Windows when dual-booting, where I use the Sonic Studio software. However on Linux, the mic input volume is so low that the sound can be barely heard on any recording or voice chatting software. So far I've been swapping between the sound card's mic jack and the motherboard's mic jack, which works fine on Linux. Would be great to have the sound card input working though, to not swap every time if I need to dual boot. (Though thanks to Proton, haven't really needed to do that so often). I'm using Pipewire with both ALSA and Pipewire's Pulseaudio addon (pipewire-pulse and pipewire-alsa) installed.
So far the first time I noticed this, I have tried to adjust the mic gain first to maximum of 100% on the OS side and also using Discord's input audio. After searching a bit and I attempted to adjust the input volume manually using pavucontrol to the maximum of 153%. It made the mic a bit more audible but it is still so quiet that it doesn't really work for conversing with others. The device profile is set as Analog Surround 7.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input in pavucontrol.
After reading amixer manpages, I also attempted to set the decibel level manually using amixer sset -command as well, but these changes didn't take any effect when attempting to set it above 12dB.
Might be a bit unrelated, but still worth mentioning if it could be related still, that there's also an issue that sometimes the system does not recognize the sound card on boot. I need to reset the device using
usbreset /dev/bus/usb/001/001manually after which it works properly.
[10937.070513] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 14 using xhci_hcd
[10937.238020] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0b05, idProduct=180d, bcdDevice= 1.03
[10937.238027] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[10937.238029] usb 1-1: Product: STRIX SOUND CARD
[10937.238031] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ASUSTeK
[10937.252210] hid-generic 0003:0B05:180D.0007: No inputs registered, leaving
[10937.252268] hid-generic 0003:0B05:180D.0007: hidraw6: USB HID v1.00 Device [ASUSTeK STRIX SOUND CARD] on usb-0000:04:00.0-1/input4
[10937.265359] mc: Linux media interface: v0.10
[10937.383590] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audiolsusb and udevadm infos:
❯ lsusb -d 0b05:180d
Bus 001 Device 014: ID 0b05:180d ASUSTek Computer, Inc. STRIX SOUND CARD❯ lsusb -t -d 0b05:180d
/: Bus 10.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M
|__ Port 3: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/3p, 5000M
/: Bus 09.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 480M
|__ Port 3: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/6p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 2: Dev 13, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 2: Dev 13, If 2, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 2: Dev 13, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 6: Dev 8, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 480M
/: Bus 08.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M
/: Bus 07.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M
/: Bus 06.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M
/: Bus 05.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=btusb, 12M
|__ Port 6: Dev 2, If 1, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=btusb, 12M
|__ Port 6: Dev 2, If 2, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=btusb, 12M
|__ Port 6: Dev 2, If 3, Class=Application Specific Interface, Driver=, 12M
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 480M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 5000M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 14, If 0, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 14, If 1, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 14, If 2, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 14, If 3, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 14, If 4, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 480Mlsusb -v -d 0b05:180d
Bus 001 Device 014: ID 0b05:180d ASUSTek Computer, Inc. STRIX SOUND CARD
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 239 Miscellaneous Device
bDeviceSubClass 2
bDeviceProtocol 1 Interface Association
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x0b05 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
idProduct 0x180d
bcdDevice 1.03
iManufacturer 1 ASUSTeK
iProduct 2 STRIX SOUND CARD
iSerial 0
bNumConfigurations 1
Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2
wTotalLength 0x03f2
bNumInterfaces 5
bConfigurationValue 1
iConfiguration 0
bmAttributes 0x80
(Bus Powered)
MaxPower 500mA
Interface Association:
bLength 8
bDescriptorType 11
bFirstInterface 0
bInterfaceCount 4
bFunctionClass 1 Audio
bFunctionSubClass 0
bFunctionProtocol 32
iFunction 0
Interface Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 4
bInterfaceNumber 0
bAlternateSetting 0
bNumEndpoints 1
bInterfaceClass 1 Audio
bInterfaceSubClass 1 Control Device
bInterfaceProtocol 32
iInterface 0
<snip>
AudioControl Interface Descriptor:
bLength 17
bDescriptorType 36
bDescriptorSubtype 2 (INPUT_TERMINAL)
bTerminalID 4
wTerminalType 0x0201 Microphone
bAssocTerminal 0
bCSourceID 22
bNrChannels 2
bmChannelConfig 0x00000003
Front Left (FL)
Front Right (FR)
iChannelNames 0
bmControls 0x0044
Connector Control (read-only)
Cluster Control (read-only)
iTerminal 0 ❯ udevadm info /dev/bus/usb/001/001
P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.2/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:02.0/0000:04:00.0/usb1
M: usb1
R: 1
U: usb
T: usb_device
D: c 189:0
N: bus/usb/001/001
L: 0
V: usb
E: DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.2/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:02.0/0000:04:00.0/usb1
E: DEVNAME=/dev/bus/usb/001/001
E: DEVTYPE=usb_device
E: DRIVER=usb
E: PRODUCT=1d6b/2/518
E: TYPE=9/0/1
E: BUSNUM=001
E: DEVNUM=001
E: MAJOR=189
E: MINOR=0
E: SUBSYSTEM=usb
E: USEC_INITIALIZED=10696364
E: ID_VENDOR=Linux_5.18.16-arch1-1_xhci-hcd
E: ID_VENDOR_ENC=Linux\x205.18.16-arch1-1\x20xhci-hcd
E: ID_VENDOR_ID=1d6b
E: ID_MODEL=xHCI_Host_Controller
E: ID_MODEL_ENC=xHCI\x20Host\x20Controller
E: ID_MODEL_ID=0002
E: ID_REVISION=0518
E: ID_SERIAL=Linux_5.18.16-arch1-1_xhci-hcd_xHCI_Host_Controller_0000:04:00.0
E: ID_SERIAL_SHORT=0000:04:00.0
E: ID_BUS=usb
E: ID_USB_INTERFACES=:090000:
E: ID_VENDOR_FROM_DATABASE=Linux Foundation
E: ID_AUTOSUSPEND=1
E: ID_MODEL_FROM_DATABASE=2.0 root hub
E: ID_PATH=pci-0000:04:00.0
E: ID_PATH_TAG=pci-0000_04_00_0
E: ID_FOR_SEAT=usb-pci-0000_04_00_0
E: TAGS=:seat:
E: CURRENT_TAGS=:seat:❯ amixer sget 'Capture' 0
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 65536
Front Left: Capture 99957 [153%] [on]
Front Right: Capture 99957 [153%] [on]So the issue seems a bit odd and nothing really stands out, other than the device not always working on boot, but it's unrelated to the mic gain issue I believe. I'd like to continue investigating this a bit further. What could be next good steps, logs, commands, or other options to investigate next? Thanks!
Last edited by erdine (2022-08-23 20:03:53)
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Alright, managed to find a workaround for the issue. Not really sure if it technically counts as solved but sharing the findings still.
Workaround is to use EasyEffects (with PipeWire and relevant ALSA/PA plugins) and add Autogain effect to the mic input channel, and adjust it to your desired input level.
Step by step:
Install Easyeffects
pacman -Syu easyeffectsFire up the app and navigate to Inputs menu at top
Open Effects tab from the bottom while having selected the input channel page
Add autogain effect and adjust the mic to your desired input gain
Last edited by erdine (2022-08-23 20:07:49)
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