microphone

[parinaa]

How do I hook a microphone up to my computer? This is really frustrating! I'm not the best at computers but, I know a good amount. So, I need step by step idiot proof instructions. I am trying to hook up my microphone to my computer. There were no directions with my microphone and I looked up help on my computer. There is not even an area on my computer that says microphone. I can plug it in and the computer recognizes a mic but, it won't let it work. Please, please help.
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[dawgdoc]

A couple of things to check, with your microphone plugged in:

1) Right click the speaker icon in the panel's notification area and then select <Preferences>, under the <Input> tab make sure the microphone is not muted, or that the volume is not too low. If that does not fix it, then >>

2) Open a terminal, type alsamixer, press <enter>
2a) Press <F6> and make sure your soundcard is correctly selected
2b) Press <F4> to display capture devices.
2c) If there is a [00] below the microphones bar graph it is active, you can increase the volume with the <arrow up> key
2d) If there is a [MM] below the bar graph it is muted and may be toggled to active by pressing the <m> key

[Jaime Frontero]

When I open Alsamixer and hit F4, there's nothing above the Front
Mic: no [00], no vertical bar (empty or otherwise). When I hit the Up Arrow, all that happens is the words "Front Mic" change to "Line".

I did the updates on the 18th before going to bed, and when I turned it on in the morning (the 9th), no mic.

I'm running LMDE 64-bit, and I purged Pulse Audio a month ago - no problems at all until yesterday after the updates.

I already tried uninstalling alsa (including config files) and re-installing.

Any hints?

[dawgdoc]

When I open Alsamixer and hit F4, there's nothing above the Front
Mic: no [00], no vertical bar (empty or otherwise). When I hit the Up Arrow, all that happens is the words "Front Mic" change to "Line".

When I open alsamixer, by default it is not on the correct sound card. I must hit <F6> and then arrow down from < - default > to < 0 HDA NVidia > If I do not do this then I can not adjust microphone or speaker settings. You could confirm what the system is seeing as your default card with either of these terminal commands.

Code: Select all

inxi -A
aplay -l

that is a lowercase L

Beyond this I do not have good advice. I do not know enough about how removing PulseAudio affects the system.

[Jaime Frontero]

thanks for responding, dawgdoc.

alsamixer comes up with the correct card - the ATI SB on the motherboard of my desktop.

but i have exactly the same problem on my netbook (running LMDE 32-bit) too. it's an Msi WIND U-100. that's what leads me to believe there's an update issue.

when i use the gnome volume applet, or "Sound" from Control Center, Mic Boost and Front Mic Boost both come up as muted on the "Recording" tab. if i unmute them, then close the applet and immediately reopen the applet, they're muted again. and when i *do* unmute them, even with the applet still open, the mic still won't work. i note that on the "Playback" tab, both Front Mic and Microphone are not muted, and stay that way.

i have a second OS installed on my desktop, which i haven't done any upgrades to, and won't. it's Mint 8, and the mic still works.

a configuration file has been messed with during upgrade, yes? i suspect that because i didn't notice any alsa-specific patches in the last couple of upgrades.

thanks again - hope you can help.

[dawgdoc]

I did a quick search for MSI U100 linux mic and did not find anything specific. There were several bios bugs for USB devices (Camera, etc), power management, etc that were solved with updating the Bios. These bugs affected Windows and Linux. I do not know if the Mic is an internal USB device or if it is on the PCI bus.

You could check Synaptic and see if you have any broken packages and fix them, or do so with the command line sudo apt-get install -f

[Jaime Frontero]

thanks again -

i hadn't thought of the BIOS. a possibility. i'll check for updates and install if there are any. i'll also try fixing broken packages - although i must confess it seems unlikely that two different computers would have exactly the same issue. but it's computers - it doesn't have to make sense, right?

i'll get back to the forum in a day or so, with results. i suppose the next step is to do a fresh install on a new partition, and do the updates one at a time. * sigh * - can't be more than 4-500 for LMDE by now...