Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby jimg » Feb 16th, '15, 00:04

My wife has a Lenovo IdeaPad S215 which has an AMD E1 chip (if that matters). It's using Mageia 4. I can't get the microphone to work, neither in Skype, nor Audacity, nor a command-line test using asound.

I don't fully know what I'm doing, but Googling and trying to gather whatever information I can, I know the following:
  • In MCC/Hardware/Sound configuration, PulseAudio is enabled and the sound card is listed as an AMD [FCH] Azalia controller, and the driver is listed as "snd_hda_intel". (Seems like this is seeing the USB controller, but not necessarily the sound card.)
  • lsusb doesn't list anything that looks like a sound card or anything audio-related.
  • /proc/asound/ lists two cards, /card0 and /card1.
    Code: Select all
    cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 | grep Codec
    yields "ATI R6xx HDMI"and
    Code: Select all
    cat /proc/asound/card1/codec#0 | grep Codec
    yields Realtek ALC283. I'm inferring that the former is for HDMI and the latter is the sound card I'm interested in.
  • Code: Select all
    lspci | grep Audio
    yields the FCH Azalia controller and [AMD/ATI] Device 9840. These are also listed in the MCC/Hardware/Browse hardware/Soundcard.
  • arecord -l lists
    Code: Select all
    ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]

I'm not sure what to do next. Does anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Jim
Boston, USA
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Re: Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 16th, '15, 18:52

You only wrote about microphone (input), but it seems you currently don't have any sound output at all?
And do you use HDMI or plain old 3.5 mm analog jack output currently? Also, what desktop do you use, GNOME, KDE, ... ?
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Re: Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby jimg » Feb 17th, '15, 00:27

We do have sound output, using the laptop's speakers and the 3.5mm headphone jack. I don't think we've tried HDMI.

We use KDE and LXDE, but if I can get it to work in KDE I'll be happy, and maybe I can worry about LXDE later.

Thanks! If you need any additional information I'll be happy to provide it.

-Jim
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Re: Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby doktor5000 » Feb 17th, '15, 19:06

Please right-click on kmix (the volume applet in the systray) => select main channel and check that your normal analog audio is selected there.

Also please check what you see in systemsettings -> multimedia -> phonon -> device preferences under the "audio recording" section.
Also there, check the tab right next to device preferences -> audio hardware setup and verify that everywhere your analog soundcard is selected.
Also described in viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6661

If that doesn't help, you probably need a special option. See http://askubuntu.com/a/388081/329633 or http://askubuntu.com/a/388081/329633
Although it's for an Lenovo Ideapad S210, it might help. And actually you only need the
Code: Select all
options snd-hda-intel model=
line.
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Re: Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby Joste » Feb 22nd, '15, 15:45

In KDE go to systemsettings, multimedia, Audio and video settings, hardware and ensure it is either in duplex mode or has +Analog in selected. Similar settings are also available in pavucontrol. It would be worth running alsamixer and ensuring the microphone isn't muted or turned down there.

(edited to fix an error)
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Re: Microphone not working on Lenovo IdeaPad S215

Postby jimg » Mar 6th, '15, 05:17

Docktor5000, your reference to
Code: Select all
options snd-hda-intel model=
let me to http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:hardware:audio_and_snd-hda-intel, which led me to "HD-Audio.txt" (found online), which indicated that "laptop-amic" is the right option. (Unless the microphone is digital--I haven't tried that option, but for a cheap netbook this seems unlikely. I'll check after I post this, just to verify.)

I created a file
Code: Select all
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
(this directory had no .conf file mentioning snd-hda-intel) and wrote in it
Code: Select all
options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-amic
options snd-hda-intel id=Generic_1 index=0
options snd-hda-intel id=Generic index=1


where "Generic" is the HDMI sound card and "Generic_1" is the one that has the microphone.

Now I can do the following, which is different from previous behavior:
  • KMix > Audio setup > Audio hardware setup > Built-in audio (second of two) > Analog stereo output enables sound device "Playback (Built-in Audio Analog Stereo)". (If I select first of two, I can't get sound to play.)
  • ... > Analog stereo input enables sound device "Recording (Built-in Audio Analog Stereo)", and then for connector I can select "Internal Microphone" or "Microphone". This is new; before, I couldn't see any input device (the drop-down was grayed out and blank). But neither newly-possible choice leads to a successful microphone test.

So, some progress in that the system appears to see a microphone. But we're not quite there yet.
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