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Microphone Madness


raymac46

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So I have this older Lenovo Flex2-15D laptop which I added an SSD to and converted to Linux. The grandkids are here for the week and they tried to do a Google meet with their dad. They could hear and see him fine but he couldn't hear them.

Later on I tried the mic with Skype test and a number of online mic testing sites and it doesn't work. No sound at all. The mic is recognized by the system and its codec is supported but it just doesn't work. USB plugged microphones work well. The internal mic isn't broken as I can record sounds locally with Audacity. The laptop's camera/mic solution is a Realtek ALC 233 chip. It's not Linux either as I have a different ALC chip in my Thinkpad (ALC 3202) and that works well with Debian.

I tried switching the O/S from Linux Mint to MX-Linux and that didn't help. I have also futzed around with alsamixer and pavucontrol with no results. The mic is not muted.

The only workaround I can see is to replace the internal mic with a usb microphone. The speakers and the camera work well. There must be a bug in the codec that messes up cloud sound transmission. The mic was working OK in Windows 10 when I had it on this laptop. Go figure.

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ray@mx-laptop-basement:~
$ grep "Codec:" /proc/asound/card*/codec*
/proc/asound/card0/codec#0:Codec: ATI R6xx HDMI
/proc/asound/card1/codec#0:Codec: Realtek ALC233
ray@mx-laptop-basement:~
ray@mx-laptop-basement:~
$ sudo dmesg | grep snd
[    8.335935] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:01.1: Force to non-snoop mode
[    8.384891] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0: autoconfig for ALC233: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[    8.384900] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.384903] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x21/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    8.384905] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    8.384907] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:    inputs:
[    8.384911] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:      Mic=0x19
[    8.384913] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC1D0:      Internal Mic=0x12
ray@mx-laptop-basement:~
ay@mx-laptop-basement:~
$ lsmod | grep snd
snd_hda_codec_realtek   122880  1
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     57344  1
snd_hda_codec_generic    86016  1 snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_intel          45056  4
snd_hda_codec         151552  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_core           94208  5 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hwdep              16384  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm               114688  4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core
snd_timer              36864  1 snd_pcm
snd                    94208  16 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_timer,snd_pcm
soundcore              16384  1 snd
ray@mx-laptop-basement:~

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
securitybreach
On 7/11/2020 at 8:19 PM, raymac46 said:

Problem solved by plugging in a USB speakerphone. It'll work great for Skype or Google Meets with the grandkids.

 

 

Nice. Sorry, I missed your response.

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I've seen similar issues on other forums. Usually turned out to be a Skype problem rather than Linux problem. Skype for Linux is a dirty hack from the Win version from what I've read.

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securitybreach
3 minutes ago, sunrat said:

I've seen similar issues on other forums. Usually turned out to be a Skype problem rather than Linux problem. Skype for Linux is a dirty hack from the Win version from what I've read.

 

Not anymore as Microsoft released an official client https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34778/what-s-new-in-skype-for-windows-mac-linux-and-web

 

I've never used it before though.

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securitybreach
7 hours ago, sunrat said:

 

Yes Microsoft. That's the mob that did the dirty hack. 😄

 

Well before Microsoft acquired them, the previous client was messing as well so I didn't know which one you were referring to.

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No I think this is a Linux problem with the hardware. I couldn't get the internal mic to work on any testing sites. The USB mike works just fine, however.

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