i couldn't get my mic to work on my EeePC 900 (ubuntu 8.04).

you are right,  it is the front mic.

I can get everything else to work on my 900 (eg, cpu scaling, wifi, webcam, sound output etc...)

Hope someone can help us with the microphone recording issue.

I'm also in this position. Everything else is working prefectly in 8.04 on eee 900.

The only thing left for me to get working is the mic..

I have the 900

doing:

sudo apt-get install module-assistant
sudo m-a update
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a a-i alsa

breaks my sound. So I didn't try it again.

I did add the line:

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base and add the line “options snd-hda-intel model=auto”

Now my mic will playback through my speakers. Meaning if I blow or say something into the mic I can hear myself through the speakers. But I can not get sound recorder, skype, etc... to capture from the device. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Last edited by specked (2008-06-11 12:14:54 pm)

BTW, there is a similar thread on this same topic.

I have eeePC 900 microphone problems too. I would like to test if a lower bit-rate for recording would help, but don't know how to test that. Here's what I have done:

1) I've installed Ubuntu 8.04 with kernel 2.6.24-18-generic and all Ubuntu updates on an eeePC 900.

2) I've applied the various fixes from the wiki and forum, and now everything works for me except the microphone. The sound playback worked with just the base Ubuntu install, but the microphone has never worked.

3) I have added the 'options snd-hda-intel model=auto' setting.

4) I checked all the alsamixer settings: The 'Front Mic', 'Microphone', 'Capture', and 'Digital', are all set to 77% and un-muted. The input source is set to 'Front Mic'. The 'PCM', and 'Front' are also set to 77-78% and unmuted, the 'Master' is set 100% and unmuted.

5) In the 'Sound Preferences', playback is set to 'Autodetect' the test buttons and system sounds work. The 'Sound Capture' is set to 'ALSA', but the test plays only a few clicks and then goes silent. The 'Default Mixer' device is 'HDA Intel (Alsa mixer)' and the default track is 'Front Mic'.

Here's what I get:

1) The sound recorder records nothing but 'clicks' and a little static from both 'Digital' and 'Capture' no matter how loud I shout. Skype records no discernible noise.

2) By unmuting the 'Front Mic' playback and increasing its volume to ~80% I can clearly hear myself blow on the mic from through the eeePC's speakers. Muting the 'Front Mic' playback turns this off. (Muting the 'Mic' does not affect it).

3) I notice that if I set the 'Sound capture' to 'Test sound' and then click on the 'Test' button, I will here a few milliseconds of tone played back but it soon stutters and goes silent. Pressing 'Test' several time I get different results, sometimes up to a second of stuttering tone, sometime just a click or two and then silence.

The results of trying to capture the 'Test sound' make me wonder if the default capture bit-rate is set too high for the eeePC 900 to keep up with. Is that plausible and does anyone know how to test this theory? Update: I tried recording at different rates with 'arecord' but it made no difference, only background static was recorded.

Update: I zapped the EeePC 900 back to the original Xandros with the recovery CD. The microphone works with both the Xandros Sound Recorder and Skype. You have to be talking a point-blank range to get any sort of volume (as others reported) but it does work. So this shows it is some sort of software problem getting it going under Ubuntu - there is hope

Aaron.

Last edited by whereisaaron (2008-06-15 7:02:53 am)

whereisaaron wrote:

BTW, there is a similar thread on this same topic.

I have eeePC 900 microphone problems too. I would like to test if a lower bit-rate for recording would help, but don't know how to test that. Here's what I have done...........

Aaron.

I have the exact same problem. Tried everything I found, nothing works. I can hear myself on the speaker if I talk loud into the microphone, but neither skype nor sound recorder will hear anything.Really anoying especialy since it perfectly works under Xandros...

Well the good news is the camera on the 900 can be fixed quite easily, you just need to install a newer version of the uvcvideo.ko module.

Be careful about updating your Ubuntu kernel, as that undoes a lot of the fixes (like wifi) and you have to repeat them.

dohkoxar wrote:

aghhh this is fustrating what does it take to get this fixed? If anyone knows a linux guru than can help us out.. I love my eee pc but Xandros sucks IMHO.

I have tried Ubuntu 8.04, eeebuntu rc2 and ubuntu eee 8.04 and none could get everything fixed after the install, I fixed a few things but webcam never worked in ubuntu and ubuntu eee and mic doesn't work in any of the three.

I hope we can get a fix soon

specked wrote:

could anyone tell me what this does:

Code:

sudo m-a a-o eeepc-acpi

Thanks

Are you sure it is m-a a-o and not m-a a-i ?
This is for the module assistant  module-assistant   auto-install )

Ps : you can refer to the man-page for module-assistant

Last edited by oupsemma (2008-06-19 4:38:14 pm)

Finally, I fixed my front mic on 900 by rebuild the sound driver module "snd-hda-intel.ko". I'm using Fedora 9. It's a hard and long way and the solution highly depends on the version of kernel so I can't list 1,2,3 steps because everyone's kernel's version and configuration may be different.


I compared the eeepc's kernel source downloaded from "http://eeepc.asus.com/global/download.htm" and my current kernel source(2.6.25.3). Then modified my kernel source's patch_realtek.c consulting eeepc source's patch_realtek.c, here's my change:

1.Copy all the entries in structs "alc662_volume_init_verbs" and "alc662_3stack_init_verbs" of eeepc source into struct "alc662_init_verbs" of my kernel source and delete all the original entries in it. Note that there should be one and only one empty entry("{ }") at the end of the struct.

2.Remove "0x23" in the array named "capture_mixers" declared in function "alc662_mux_enum_put" and change the capacity of the array from "2" to "1".

3 To enable mic boost, add the following two lines to the end of function "alc662_parse_auto_config" before "return 1;":
err = alc_auto_add_mic_boost(codec);
if (err < 0) return err;


And then rebuild modules. With the new "snd-hda-intel.ko" my front mic works, on both sound recorder and skype. I'm using ALSA and pulseaudio, in the system's audio settings, I use pulseaudio as all playback devices and use ALSA as capture and mixer devices. There's nothing in my /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf and I have no /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.


OK. That's just what I saw and what I did. I'm a beginner with kernel making and know nothing about hardware. Maybe some change is unnecessary.


But it's a bad solution, too complicated, and if my kernel updates to a new version I must compare the source again, modify the source again and rebuild the module again. Hope there's a simple way. Maybe some configuration in alsa-base that force the module recognize the sound card as alc861vd will work. I'll try it.

Last edited by quickfire (2008-06-23 1:29:48 am)

OK. The modification on alc662_init_verbs is unnecessary. The patch is much simpler now.

--- linux-2.6.25.3/sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c    Tue Jun 24 09:41:03 2008
+++ linux-2.6.25.3/sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c    Tue Jun 24 09:49:15 2008
@@ -12831,7 +12831,7 @@
     struct alc_spec *spec = codec->spec;
     const struct hda_input_mux *imux = spec->input_mux;
     unsigned int adc_idx = snd_ctl_get_ioffidx(kcontrol, &ucontrol->id);
-    static hda_nid_t capture_mixers[2] = { 0x23, 0x22 };
+    static hda_nid_t capture_mixers[1] = { 0x22 };
     hda_nid_t nid = capture_mixers[adc_idx];
     unsigned int *cur_val = &spec->cur_mux[adc_idx];
     unsigned int i, idx;
@@ -13666,6 +13666,10 @@
     spec->init_verbs[spec->num_init_verbs++] = alc662_auto_init_verbs;
     spec->mixers[spec->num_mixers] = alc662_capture_mixer;
     spec->num_mixers++;
+    
+    err = alc_auto_add_mic_boost(codec);
+    if (err < 0) return err;
+    
     return 1;
 }

I've posted the patched code but I need beta testers before I can release it on my repository.

I've started a new thread:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=33794

If you're running either an EeePC 700 (et al) or EeePC 900, give it a shot!

Hopefully the mic works for both models

adamm wrote:

Hmm... I applied the patch onto my eeepc kernel, installed it on my EeePC 900 and I think my mic is working!

At first I noticed that all the test sounds I recorded crackled a lot. I soon realized that its related to your CPU speed. If you run at full 900 MHz, it appears to record fine. Interesting.
(It would be nice if we could instruct snd_hda_intel to request a 'performance' policy on cpufreq, while it's recording

I'm going to run some more tests tomorrow morning, and if all goes well I'll post this compiled patch into my eeepc repository.
If you're linked into the repository and using the eeepc kernel, the patch should be auto-downloaded to your device, free of charge!

Great find, quickfire ... you're probably one of the first to simplify it like this.

Adam, are you sure the crackling is directly related to CPU speed? The reason I ask is I lowered mine 112Mhz, used Sound Recorder and changed the 'Record As' to WAV, not OGG. I think the OGG processing might require a few extra CPU cycles to record live.

adamm wrote:

damian wrote:

Adam, are you sure the crackling is directly related to CPU speed? The reason I ask is I lowered mine 112Mhz, used Sound Recorder and changed the 'Record As' to WAV, not OGG. I think the OGG processing might require a few extra CPU cycles to record live.

I set my min speed to 337 MHz, according to /etc/sysfs.conf
Also, I am still using p4_clockmod. Maybe eee900freq reacts differently?

Or, maybe gnome-sound-recorder is smart enough to say, "Hey, your CPU is below X MHz, you must be on an original Pentium and there's no way you can encode OGG. Let me change that format for you!"

How helpful!

I was using p4_clockmod, although I can poke 0 the cpufv value too, there's no difference in the quality (a term I use loosely!)

I'm definitely not 'modding' gnome-sound-recorder to do that check!!!!