snd-hda-intel STAC9228 Dell XPS M1330 Integrated Mic TOO Low

[rumburak]

Hi guys,

I am doomed to some yet another sonud card variant implementing the famous codec...
After lots of reads and tries (including hand-patching the drivers after some ubuntu crap) - I managed to get the sound working properly just by emerging the forbidden alsa 9999 packages.
- No need for "model=3stack (or something)" anymore.
- If you load/unload several times the module trying different models you might end up with wrong mixers.
- Works: headphone jacks, speakers, mic, -- and somehow the internal mic.

Record something with an alsa program... audacity shows me way too low levels for the mic - there seems to be a common problem.
The spoken sound is like -50db (anything other than tapping on the mic) - so it's really useless.

I searched for some "soft" mic boost patches or something, but I found nothing for this specific hardware.
Any ideeas? Follows pcis, card, codec (sorry for that).

Cheers!

spci:

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00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0427 (rev a1)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)

cat /proc/asound/cards

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 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfebfc000 irq 21

cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0

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* removed unrelevant code *

[rumburak]

In short you have to use the softvol plugin of alsa.

How to do that:
- get the latest alsa-driver snapshot (12-Jan-2008).
- get the alsa-utils, alsa-lib (1.0.15).
- create/edit ~/.asoundrc (per user) - this is mine:

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pcm.digmic {
        type softvol
        slave.pcm "default"
        control.name "digmic"
        control.card 0
        min_dB -30.0
        max_dB 30.0
}

The "digmic" is a name chosen by me as a new created recording device, which will be detected by an alsa-compliant application at it's start - you must select it for recording in the application's settings.
The "digmic" is a name chosen by me as a new mixer that will appear *after* starting using this device - this is not crap but a feature like the windows vista dinamic mixers which appear for every new application started.
Tested with skype and audacity - you can properly use the mic. There is a noticeable background noise - more powerful than the one in vista - but I can't tell for sure.

For more details you can see this Ubuntu bug #153963 https://bugs.launchpad.net/dell/+bug/153963

Many thanks to the guys at Ubuntu.

[kernelOfTruth]

Many thanks to the guys at Ubuntu.

++

[bilbotux]

Hey,

I have the same computer, using last kernel sources (2.6.24) and I'm unable to have the internal mic working: everything else (speaker, headphone, external mic) is working fine.
Does anyone know what I can do ? (many ubuntu posts say that the internal mic is working, but everything I found is about kernel 2.6.22 so I guess it should have been integrated in the last kernel).

Thanks

[kernelOfTruth]

Hey,

I have the same computer, using last kernel sources (2.6.24) and I'm unable to have the internal mic working: everything else (speaker, headphone, external mic) is working fine.
Does anyone know what I can do ? (many ubuntu posts say that the internal mic is working, but everything I found is about kernel 2.6.22 so I guess it should have been integrated in the last kernel).

Thanks

try 2.6.24 or 2.6.25-zen0 (2.6.25-zen1 will be out soon) that works flawless for me older kernels are somewhat "tricky"