capture keeps going down to 0

[shengchieh]

I'm trying to use skype and can't get the microphone working. In the (menu -> sound & video ->) sound mixer (GNOME ALSA Mixer) I noted the
microphone and capture is set at 0. So I bumped them up to the maximum (adjusted internal microphone & capture to the maximum) and check
"Rec." under the capture section. When I make a skype test call (using echo123), the capture slider will descend back to zero and my microphone
will not work. What is the fix? Don't you need both microphone and capture + capture Rec. on to use the microphone?

Will adding pulseaudio or Audacity help as mentioned in these two posts?

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... ne#p298121
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... ne#p280128

or is there something else I'm missing?

Fyi, I'm using an eee 4G linux laptop and the lspci data is

http://shengchieh.50webs.com/Laptoplspci.txt

Thanks in advanced for your help!

Sheng-Chieh

[Insane1]

I'm trying to use skype and can't get the microphone working. In the (menu -> sound & video ->) sound mixer (GNOME ALSA Mixer) I noted the
microphone and capture is set at 0. So I bumped them up to the maximum (adjusted internal microphone & capture to the maximum) and check
"Rec." under the capture section. When I make a skype test call (using echo123), the capture slider will descend back to zero and my microphone
will not work. What is the fix? Don't you need both microphone and capture + capture Rec. on to use the microphone?

Will adding pulseaudio or Audacity help as mentioned in these two posts?

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... ne#p298121
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... ne#p280128

or is there something else I'm missing?

Fyi, I'm using an eee 4G linux laptop and the lspci data is

http://shengchieh.50webs.com/Laptoplspci.txt

Thanks in advanced for your help!

Sheng-Chieh

Well I'm not entirely sure if this will help you, but for mic and other control in LXDE you'll likely want to use alsamixer in command line (it's partially graphical...in it's own way). Personally I've found it easier to understand/use than GNOME Alsa Mixer.

Quick Instructions:
"m" mutes channels
"tab" switches between your output, input, and a mix of both
"space" turns on record/capture with inputs
"up" "down" on the arrow keys will move volume up and down, as well as change channel mode and input mode (input modes include things like front mic/mic/etc. Usually, if you have "front mic" that'll be what you want to choose for your active capture)
"F1" for this type of help in alsamixer itself.

If alsamixer's values reset to zero, then perhaps Skype is making some sort of change to them accidentally...? I'm not entirely sure as I haven't tested skype on LXDE yet. (I'll actually have the opportunity to do it in a bit, so I may come back with more accurate information later)

[shengchieh]

UPDATE: 9/5/10

I installed Linux Mint LXDE. Microphone works just fine. So if you have problem(s) with microphone and are still using version 8, move up to version 9.

Sheng-Chieh

[rbloch66]

I am using Linux Mint LXDE and I CANNOT for the life of me to get my microphone to work. It's certainly not for a lack of looking.

[shengchieh]

Do you have capture on, i.e., open the mixer or run alsamixer from a terminal turn on the capture. Also raise the microphone level. If you did, try
testing with arecord and aplay (search for "aplay manpage").

Sheng-Chieh

[rbloch66]

Thanks for your help. I tried everything with no success. I'll wait till they get the bugs ironed out.

I re-setup xp on a dual boot, and I'll get what I need done that way.

I appreciate the time.

[jesterofalltrades]

This is an old thread, but I had the same issue and found a simple solution.

Options > Sound Devices > UNCHECK Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels!

[robsmint]

This seems to be the most relevant thread for this comment.

I had been happily using Mint 9 LXDE since its release over a year ago including having no problems with the microphone or other audio issues when I recently discovered that the microphone had ceased to work (I was using Skype at the time).
I verified a few things including that the same version of Alsa was installed as originally.
The only thing that was different was that there had been various kernel updates. Finally discovered that the microphone had become muted but none of the installed tools would make this visible or accessible.
The answer for me was to install Pulse Audio Device Chooser (padevchooser in Synaptic) which allowed me to see this and unmute it.
Not sure what broke it but the kernel updates are the most likely.

Hope this helps anyone who may have troubles.