Lost microphone [solved]

MartinZ · 2006-11-21 20:46:09

My microphone was working fine, but since 4 or 5 days i get no sound anymore. I think i did no change, and everything else related to alsa seems to run well. I double checked all levels under xfce4-mixer and alsamixer and found nothing unusual.

I tried running arecord as suggested in a similar thread, but all i get is somethig like this:

martin@myhost> arecord                                                        ~
Recording WAVE 'stdin' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
RIFF$WAVEfmt @@data

...and so on. It ate my whole CPU, i had to kill it.

I know it's no hardware problem because i tested it under Windoze.
Any ideas??

lanrat · 2006-11-21 21:24:13

What kind of sound card do you have?

Try running alsamixer from xterm and then press F5. Check the following things:

1. Mic control: volume 100%, it can be muted - MM, CAPTURE in red (if you can't see this go to Mic control using cursor keys and press the space key once).

2. Mic Boost control: unmuted (00). If it's muted press the m key.

3. Mic select control: choose the right microphone (probably Mic1).

4. Capture control (if you can see this control - it should be somewhere on the right): volume 100%, CAPUTURE in red (press the space key).

It should be enough. Now exit with Esc and try recording something with:

arecord -f cd test.wav

Record a few seconds and press ctrl_c when you're done. Now play it with

aplay test.wav

I hope this helps.

MartinZ · 2006-11-21 21:35:41

What a fast and good reply!! Thanks a lot.

Everything was exactly like you sayed it must be.
arecord recorded just a silent file.

I have just an integrated sound card, lshwd gives me this:

Multimedia audio controller
  snd-intel8x0    : Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]|SiS7012 PCI Audio Accelerator

lanrat · 2006-11-22 16:02:39

What sound modules are loaded? (lsmod | grep snd)
Did you try to record to a file as root ?

EDIT: just to be sure.
Does alsamixer look like this after pressing F5?:

and like this when you press F2?:

Are you sure you have the right mic selected? I have two mics for example:

amixer get 'Mic Select'
Simple mixer control 'Mic Select',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'Mic1' 'Mic2'
  Item0: 'Mic1'

(in theory because the second mic is not a real mic :-))

What did you update with pacman since the time when recording worked fine? (check your /var/log/pacman.log).

MartinZ · 2006-11-22 23:15:54

Checking everything you said i found nothing wrong. Just for trying i changed the option Surround Jack Mode from shared to independent... and my mic came back!! I don't even know what this means, i also think i never touched it before.

Here is a screenshot of it:

Thanks a lot lanrat.

lanrat · 2006-11-23 15:02:44

I'm glad it works now for you :-).

I had a very similar problem a few days ago with the "Capture" option.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-11-21 20:46:09

Lost microphone [solved]

#2 2006-11-21 21:24:13

Re: Lost microphone [solved]

#3 2006-11-21 21:35:41

Re: Lost microphone [solved]

#4 2006-11-22 16:02:39

Re: Lost microphone [solved]

#5 2006-11-22 23:15:54

Re: Lost microphone [solved]

#6 2006-11-23 15:02:44

Re: Lost microphone [solved]

Board footer