internal mic not working, hp laptop, LM18 [SOLVED]

[loggerjack]

Running linux mint 18 on a HP X031NA Energy Star.

The internal microphone doesn't work. When I select it in 'sound settings', the controls are greyed out - the volume slider is stuck at zero and the 'input level' shows nothing. When I open alsamixer in the terminal and select F4, it tells me "This sound device does not have any capture controls."

Any suggestions gratefully received.

[coffee412]

Although not exactly your issue but its the same sound device. If you read this thread below you might find some things to try.

viewtopic.php?t=234867

[jimallyn]

Many sound problems have been fixed by installing pavucontrol, which then shows up in the Sound & Video menu as PulseAudio Volume Control, and playing with the settings there. You will probably want to start some application recording the microphone, Audacity or whatever, or the mic probably won't show up in PulseAudio Volume Control. (Which seems a little strange to me, but that's how it works.)

[yaye]

If you are using Mint 18 Cinnamon 64-bit, see MenthaSuaveolens posts in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=1237676#p1237676

viewtopic.php?p=1237746#p1237746

There is a mistake in one of the lines in the cs_sound.py file. You should be able to use Xedit to edit the file.

[loggerjack]

Many apologies for being so slow to respond to the helpful suggestions of all three of you. Something came up, then I forgot I'd posted. That's a really pathetic excuse, but true I'm afraid.

Anyway,

coffee412, thanks, that post about the sound card was me too! Never did get a solution to it, just have to keep opening sound control and turning volume up to 153%.

yaye, thanks also. I checked out those threads and edited the file as instructed but no joy (...or maybe there was ....)

jimallyn, special thanks to you. I already had pavucontrol installed but didn't think to check it and you were right! With Audacity recording, I played about with pavucontrol settings until ..... In the Configuration tab >>Built In Audio, I selected Analogue Stereo Duplex and all my input levels sprang to life.

Now I'm wondering about the file I edited as suggested by yaye. Maybe if I hadn't edited it, I wouldn't have had success later. Maybe there were two problems. Whatever, everything is brilliant now so I'll leave the file as it is, I can always reverse the edit later if something crops up.

Thank you all for caring and for your knowledge.

[yaye]

yaye, thanks also. I checked out those threads and edited the file as instructed but no joy (...or maybe there was ....)

You're welcome.

Now I'm wondering about the file I edited as suggested by yaye. Maybe if I hadn't edited it, I wouldn't have had success later. Maybe there were two problems. Whatever, everything is brilliant now so I'll leave the file as it is, I can always reverse the edit later if something crops up.

If you didn't edit the file, when you selected Analog Stereo Duplex, it's likely all the other functions of your audio would have worked except the microphone. Good to heard you got it working. Posting screenshots of the problem is also a good way to get it resolved faster.

[jimallyn]

jimallyn, special thanks to you. I already had pavucontrol installed but didn't think to check it and you were right! With Audacity recording, I played about with pavucontrol settings until .....

You're welcome, loggerjack. I can't tell you how many times I have seen on these forums where somebody's audio problems were fixed by playing with the controls in pavucontrol. Seen it so many times that its the first thing I suggest for audio problems.