[SOLVED] Having issues with laptop mic detection

[rinjo]

Hi All,

I am running Fedora 10 on my laptop.
Recently I installed Empathy to use voice chat on Linux, however, Empathy does not detect the laptops inbuilt microphone!
I have checked the audio settings and found that the mic is enabled.
I know that the mic is working as it works fine when I am booted onto my Windows partition.

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks in advance.

[MikeTbob]

Does the Mic work with any other applications? Can you determine if Empathy is the only app with this problem?

You're certain that the mic is not muted, in your mixer settings?

[rinjo]

Does the Mic work with any other applications? Can you determine if Empathy is the only app with this problem?

You're certain that the mic is not muted, in your mixer settings?

The mic works fine and I regularly use it in windows.
As for linux, I do not have any other applications on my system other than Empathy that will require to use a mic.

I am certain that the mic is not mute in the mixer settings as I checked all the settings before putting in this post.

[MikeTbob]

Maybe you can try Pidgin or any other App that uses a mic just to see if it works. Pidgen can probably be found in your system repos.

[rinjo]

Maybe you can try Pidgin or any other App that uses a mic just to see if it works. Pidgen can probably be found in your system repos.

I have been using Pidgin on Linux. Unfortunately it does not have the option of voice chat.

[MikeTbob]

Well try something simple like gnome-sound-recorder or krecord if you use KDE

[rinjo]

Well try something simple like gnome-sound-recorder or krecord if you use KDE

I tried the gnome sound recorder, but its not recording anything.
Once I press record, it hangs and the application does not exit.

Not sure what else to try out. I have even tried with an external mic... but to no use!

[MikeTbob]

Well, I'd suggest starting from the bottom and working our way up. Please post the output of these commands as root:

lspci | grep -i audio

Does your system use alsa? Pulse audio?
Which modules are loaded?

lsmod

Once I press record, it hangs and the application does not exit.

That is not good, it's probably because of a wrong driver or something. Does your sound system work, aside from the non working mic? Have you tested that mic on another system, just to be sure.

[rinjo]

Hi Mike,

First of all thanks for helping me out. Here is the outputs of that you had requested.

]# lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

and the lsmod output is seen below.

# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
fuse                   49436  10 
i915                   53380  2 
drm                   158260  3 i915
rfcomm                 33936  4 
bridge                 43668  0 
stp                     6148  1 bridge
bnep                   14848  2 
sco                    12932  2 
l2cap                  21504  16 rfcomm,bnep
sunrpc                155924  3 
ip6t_REJECT             7296  2 
nf_conntrack_ipv6      15864  2 
ip6table_filter         6400  1 
ip6_tables             14736  1 ip6table_filter
ipv6                  230132  22 ip6t_REJECT,nf_conntrack_ipv6
cpufreq_ondemand        9996  2 
acpi_cpufreq           12172  0 
dm_multipath           17164  0 
uinput                 10624  0 
snd_hda_intel         351124  3 
snd_seq_dummy           6660  0 
snd_seq_oss            30364  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      9600  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                48576  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device         10124  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
firewire_ohci          22532  0 
arc4                    5760  2 
snd_pcm_oss            42496  0 
firewire_core          35616  1 firewire_ohci
crc_itu_t               5760  1 firewire_core
e100                   33804  0 
ecb                     6528  2 
mii                     8192  1 e100
crypto_blkcipher       18052  1 ecb
snd_mixer_oss          16896  1 snd_pcm_oss
iTCO_wdt               13732  0 
btusb                  14360  3 
snd_pcm                65924  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
sdhci_pci              10624  0 
bluetooth              48608  11 rfcomm,bnep,sco,l2cap,btusb
snd_timer              22024  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
ricoh_mmc               7552  0 
snd_page_alloc         11016  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
iTCO_vendor_support     6916  1 iTCO_wdt
sdhci                  17540  1 sdhci_pci
mmc_core               43676  1 sdhci
snd_hwdep              10500  1 snd_hda_intel
uvcvideo               50184  0 
compat_ioctl32          5120  1 uvcvideo
videodev               32000  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat            15876  2 uvcvideo,videodev
snd                    50616  16 snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwdep
soundcore               9416  1 snd
serio_raw               8836  0 
pcspkr                  6272  0 
i2c_i801               12048  0 
i2c_core               21396  2 drm,i2c_i801
video                  20244  0 
iwl3945               129628  0 
rfkill                 11288  2 iwl3945
mac80211              173668  1 iwl3945
cfg80211               23816  2 iwl3945,mac80211
joydev                 12736  0 
output                  6528  1 video
wmi                     9768  0 
ata_generic             8452  0 
pata_acpi               7680  0

I think you are right about the issue with the sound driver.
At present I am able to use the audio outputs and connect external speakers, however, the internal speakers do not work. This used to work sometime back, but currently its not work.
I think something major has gone wrong.
This is not the case when the system is booted in Windows partition, where both the internal mic and the internal speakers work absolutely fine.

[MikeTbob]

If it was me, I'd ditch Fedora and try another distro....at least try some LiveCDs and see if there is still a problem. It looks to me as if the right drivers are loading. Do you see any error messages related to sound if you issue these commands?

dmesg | grep -i audio
dmesg | grep -i error
dmesg | grep -i fail