Internal microphone not working

Question

I have an internal microphone in my laptop. I think it uses Intel High Definition Audio. But I can't get it to work with Ubuntu. It doesn't work with either the Sound Recorder or Skype.

On the Input tab in 'Sound Preferences', I just see Internal Analog Input Device...

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 and after this the in built microphone did not work. An external microphone was fine. I tried adding the extra line "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" to the "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf" file but this made no difference. I resolved the problem very easily, as stated earlier in this thread. I installed Pulse Audio Volume control with the software centre and unlocked the left and right channels of the microphone. The icon is in the top righhand corner next to the mute icon. This worked but beware, the problem came back after using Skype. You have to stop skype from a — , Mar 13 '13 at 13:26
This is a duplicate question of: Ubuntu 20.04 Lenovo Ideapad Microphone not working — galoget, Jul 09 '21 at 06:10

score 35 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 06 '22 at 05:57

35

This is what I had to do to get the internal mic to work on my Acer Aspire 5745G:

Install pavucontrol:
```
sudo apt install -y pavucontrol
```
Run it with:
```
pavucontrol
```

Looks like:

If it hangs and says:

Volume Control. Establishing Connection to PulseAudio. Please wait...

then you have started it with sudo pavucontrol. Do not use sudo.

Go to the "Input Devices" tab
Click the lock icon to unlock the channels
Set the right-front channel to silence

edited Sep 06 '22 at 05:57

questionto42

244

answered Dec 31 '10 at 07:55

when I did this (though I use an Acer Aspire 5810TZ). It didn't work for me. But in the terminal I got this>>>>>>> daniel@daniel-Peter5o10:~$ sudo pavucontrol ** (pavucontrol:2805): DEBUG: Error reading config file /root/.config/pavucontrol.ini: No such file or directory ** (pavucontrol:2805): DEBUG: Failed to initialize device manager extension: No such extension – Daniel Clem Jan 03 '12 at 09:31
1

Last step: Then click "Set as fallback" to save, otherwise it will not work. – Nicolas Raoul Feb 22 '16 at 08:45
Just pressing the unlock button and then locking again worked for me. No idea how it worked though. – Jyotman Singh Jan 14 '17 at 09:00
not working in 16.04 is it? – Mar 08 '17 at 14:06
works in 16.04! Acer Aspire E1-572G with only 1 jack for headset. Just unlocked the channels. – spirit Mar 10 '17 at 09:51
What is the reason this is supposed to work? – lucidbrot Nov 18 '20 at 10:20
In my case, on Linux Mint Ulyssa 20.1, it hangs after sudo pavucontrol, "Establishing a connection to PulseAudio. Wait....". There are two unanswered follow-up questions, the more recent at https://askubuntu.com/questions/1257545/internal-mic-not-working-properly and an older follow-up at Internal mic is not working on my lenovo b50 series laptop with ubuntu 14.04. – questionto42 Jun 16 '21 at 15:38
@questionto42standswithUkraine It was hanging for me too, until I turn bluetooth on, you might need to install bluez, blueman, or any bluetooth utility – Alexandre Daubricourt Aug 29 '22 at 06:53
@AlexandreDaubricourt found it out. It is wrong to use sudo. Run it without sudo, as the other answer says it. Then you can login. I will try to edit that. – questionto42 Sep 04 '22 at 19:32

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:08

12

I had the same problem, and fixed it thus:

If you go to the Ubuntu Software Centre and download the Pulse Audio Volume Control or from a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

Then just run it with:

pavucontrol

And your microphone should show up there. If your microphone shows up but you're still not getting any sound, unlock the channels, and drop one of them down to zero. This worked for me, hope it helps you!

edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:08

galoget

2,963

answered May 27 '12 at 02:38

0d_billie

518

Did just notice the date of this post, my bad! Maybe this answer will help anybody who comes a-looking :P – 0d_billie May 27 '12 at 02:39
It did! :-) Although I had to set it to slightly above 0 in order to see any amplitude. – bit-pirate Nov 26 '13 at 02:02

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:02

11

Add this line to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file:

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-vostro enable=1 index=0

edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:02

galoget

2,963

answered Oct 19 '10 at 05:49

User

4,526

i had this problem in lucid and it was fixed out of the box on maverick – RobotHumans Nov 08 '10 at 19:17

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 00:19

8

I know this might sound crazy, but go to the sound preferences, under input, and make sure the check mark for mute is unchecked, it is checked by default....

answered Oct 14 '10 at 00:19

TheXed

26,536

Its not crazy, its sensible. But I've already checked that. – User Oct 14 '10 at 01:03
Do you have an external microphone to test with? If so does it work? – TheXed Oct 14 '10 at 01:58
No.. Currently I do not have access to an external microphone to test my set-up. – User Oct 14 '10 at 05:06
1

I know it is crazy. Skype wouldnt work for me and I figured out that I had to uncheck this. I can't understand why it is set to mute as default! – Pasta Oct 19 '10 at 06:52
wow... it sounds crazy as you said. But the mute button it's really tiny and subtle in the preferences that I didn't notice it was activated (And no idea why it was activated without asking me). Thanks! – silgon Jul 29 '18 at 07:14

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:06

2

Open a new terminal and run the following commands:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

Add these two lines to the end of alsa-base.conf:

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto

Save and reboot.

edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:06

galoget

2,963

answered Oct 21 '12 at 13:06

flash

31

Prior to your steps, the only thing that would show for input devices was HDMI Tv that I'm using as a monitor (which doesn't even have a mic). However, after your steps it still doesn't show the laptop's bult-in mic; it shows this, which isn't a mic either (or if it is mic I can't get the meter to pick up any sound I'm making after toggling all the buttons). I'm having this issue on Debian 11. If I installed ubuntu onto this same machine the mic works. Maybe the mic needs some non-free driver that I don't have installed. I'm not sure. – Lonnie Best Dec 27 '21 at 01:29

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:04

1

The solution given above it probably the right thing to do, I've encountered this problem several times at some friends. However, if you can't find it, it might be the case that Ubuntu detected the wrong default audio device. Which happens are various allocations.

If this happens, simply open the sounds manager and browse through the devices in the small menu at the top. Just try turn mute off for all of them and then I'm 100% sure that you will figure it out!

edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:04

galoget

2,963

answered Oct 14 '10 at 08:40

KYI

243

I have tried to select and test this for all my sound devices. The internal mic works with none. – User Oct 15 '10 at 01:51

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:05

1

If you have Fn keys on your keyboard, try enabling the webcam using the Fn keys. in my case the mic and the webcam are disabled and enabled by the same Fn key. I am not sure but you might have a separate Fn key for the mic.

edited Jul 09 '21 at 06:05

galoget

2,963

answered Jul 04 '17 at 08:15

Waqleh

871

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 24 '20 at 22:47

0

In case solutions with pavucontrol did not work for you, try boosting your internal mic from alsamixer in a terminal. By default, it is set to zero, but boosting it resolved my problem.

answered Feb 24 '20 at 22:47

SAbbasizadeh

101
1

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Jul 09 '21 at 04:35

I am running Lenovo Thinkpad with Ubuntu 18.04 and I'm connected to the lenovo Dock which may have affected the native headphone controls. Both headphone and headphone mic would not work.

I tried the top answer by Arpit Phillips:

Install Pavucontrol with:
```
sudo apt install -y pavucontrol
```
Run Pavucontrol with:
```
sudo pavucontrol
```
Go to the "Input Devices" Tab
Click the Lock icon to unlock the channels

and I was able to unmute my headphone there to hear sound, but the mic continued to not work.

Secondly, I tried the answer by User and oddly it worked in getting my mic working again.

Add this line to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file: options:
```
snd-hda-intel model=dell-vostro enable=1 index=0
```

I tested my microphone with https://www.onlinemictest.com

Internal microphone not working

9 Answers9

Linked

Related