microphone input fails

[jwf]

Hi,
I'm trying to record in audacity from a microphone, (on the desktop) but nothing seems to be recording. The mic is good (checked it out on another machine).
I've searched the forums and have opened alsamixer and un-muted the microphone everywhere I see that control but still nothing records in audacity or sound recorder.
Audacity plays back OK because i can generate some effects in some tracks, but turning on microphone monitor shows nothing coming through the mic .
Anyone have an idea what I can try?

[Rubberman]

Is your sound card built into the motherboard, or are you using an add-in card? If an add-in, it is possible that the system isn't sure which input channel (built-in vs. sound card) to use.

[jwf]

I think the sound card is built in to the mother board.
If I go to System>Preferences>Sound, I try all the selections under "Audio Conferencing Sound Capture" (I figure this should be the microphone) there are about 10 selections, one of which is "Test Sound" this is the only one of the selections that produce a sound (not a very good one though) when tested. I don't know if this has anything to do with my problem. I figure one of the other selections (Intel ICH6 with AD1981B Intel ICH6 - Mic2 ADC (ALSA) )should produce something. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here??

update:this may be significant, Audacity does not show any device selection toolbar even though I selected it to be on.
Maybe this suggests that the hardware is having trouble identifying an input device.

[Rubberman]

Have you tried installing Skype and seeing if it can find it? I have found that Skype is pretty good about seeing all the audio hardware in the system, even my bluetooth headset.

[jwf]

Skype is installed, But I've only used it as a chat.
Testing it now, I get an error message that says "Problem with audio playback"

update: going to System>Administration>Hardware Testing verifies my sound playback works fine. The audio card detected is ICH6.

[Rubberman]

Go to the Skype options->audio devices form. There is a combo box for audio output and input that should recognize the devices on the system. You will probably need to change them from "default".

[jwf]

Hmm, seems this machine has two places to plug in a microphone, on the back and on the front. I switched to the front jack and it now works fine.

Thanks for your help Rubberman.