Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) Audio device

Hungry ghost · 12-18-2007, 02:51 PM

Hi people. I'm using a PC (Core 2 Duo) with an on board audio device. The sound works perfect, but the microphone doesn't work at all (it works fine on Windows, though). The PC has two microphone inputs: one at the front side and another one at the rear side; I opened the gnome volume control and selected "Mic" as input source (there's also a "Front Mic" option, but since I want to use the one at the rear side, I selected "Mic"). Then I adjusted the mic volume, but there's no sound when I try to use the mic with skype. I also used alsamixer to adjust the volume levels, but in spite I selected the "mic" option as input source, I can't adjust the volume level up when I try to do it with the keyboard up arrow (it just won't get higher).

Here's some info that might be useful:

Code:

lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

Code:

aplay -l
**** Lista de PLAYBACK Dispositivos Hardware ****
tarjeta 0: Intel [HDA Intel], dispositivo 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
  Subdispositivos: 0/1
  Subdispositivo #0: subdevice #0
tarjeta 0: Intel [HDA Intel], dispositivo 1: STAC92xx Digital [STAC92xx Digital]
  Subdispositivos: 1/1
  Subdispositivo #0: subdevice #0

There's something weird in the above output: the audio device is supposed to be an Intel one, but it's detected as a STAC92xx by aplay (WindowsXP tells me it's a Sigmatel device). BTW, when I go to the gnome volume control, it also detects two audio devices: Device 0: "HDA Intel (alsa mixer)" and Device 1: "SigmaTel STAC9227 (OSS mixer)".

cat /proc/asound/cards gives me this:

Code:

cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0x92100000 irq 23

And this is the output of lsmod | grep snd

Code:

lsmod | grep snd
snd_hda_intel         263712  5 
snd_pcm_oss            44672  0 
snd_mixer_oss          17664  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                80388  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy           4740  0 
snd_seq_oss            33152  0 
snd_seq_midi            9600  0 
snd_rawmidi            25728  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      8448  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                53232  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              24324  3 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          9228  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    54660  17 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore               8800  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         11400  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

By the way, I'm using Ubuntu Gutsy and Debian Lenny in this machine, but it's the same problem with each one of them. So, does anyone know what's wrong here and how to solve it?

Thanks in advance.

bodiless · 05-14-2009, 06:47 AM

Well this answer is a bit outdated but I came across the same problem and because it took me some time to find the solution I thought I'll post here in case anyone else comes across the same problem.

So the problem seems to be that alsamixer doesn't take control over the microphone. The problem got solved after:

1. installing gnome-alsamixer
2. running gnome-alsamixer as user

After you run gnome-alsamixer you'll see that it has three Rec. option under Capture. All three are not checked by default.

3. I checked the first one and the microphone started working.

I am not sure what other solution there might be for people running some other WM and not wanting to install any gnome... apps.