5

Newbie here, so please excuse anything trivial I may have missed.

I have a Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592G. I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 on it, and it is working mostly fine.

One thing I didn't get to work is the built-in microphone. I tried all the solutions involving changes in alsa-base.conf, to no avail. I also tried installing pavucontrol, but I could not see my microphone in the interface.

Right now, in my sounds setting, I have:

  • with my headphones (no mic) on: headphones/analog input (no speakers option)

  • with my headphones off: speakers/analog input

Both headphones and speakers work fine, but the analog input shows no signs of activity.

Anyone has any idea how I can get this to work?

This is what sudo aplay -l returns:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC255 Analog [ALC255 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Stilltorik
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  • No luck with alsaMixer either (one can hope...). – Stilltorik Jan 28 '16 at 10:28
  • Can you see nothing in pavucontrol's 'Input Devices' at all? There should be two drop down boxes: 1. 'Port' 2. 'Show'

    Make sure you have tried all permutations of these 2 dropdowns...

     – andrew.46 Feb 02 '16 at 08:21
  • When I switch "Show" to All input devices, I actually see two options: "Monitor of built-in Audio analog stereo" and "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo". None of them have any activity. – Stilltorik Feb 02 '16 at 08:33
  • Did you solve it in the meantime? I have the exact same problem on a machine with the exact same output for aplay -l. (Btw, for the microphone the output of arecord -l is more relevant...) – Armin Rigo May 07 '16 at 09:14
  • No, I didn't manage. I have a workaround though: I use USB headphones (I use the Logitech H390, but I suppose any should work). Not ideal, but it works. – Stilltorik May 08 '16 at 20:56

3 Answers3

7

SOLUTION for external microphone:

  • As recommended by Steve, edit the alsa config file

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

  • Add this line at the end of the file and save it

    options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

  • Reboot ! (just logging out+in didn't work for me)

  • Plug in your mic + go to sound settings

  • Select "Headset-Microphone"

  • Change to "Microphone"

That's how it works for me :) Internal microphone is still not working, though.

EDIT: If you are using a headset (headphones with integrated mic): first select "Microphone" then select "Headset-Microphone".

My Laptop: Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592

PS: I think the combined audio/headset-jack on this Laptop was the problem here. Maybe this also helps for other Laptops with combined audio jacks (combo jack, combined mic jack).

Update: Still working the same on Ubuntu 19.04

Community
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Joe123
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  • Thank you @Joe123 for this workaround. I had been facing similar problems with my laptop which is Acer Swift3 SF314-55G and it seems like a driver compatibility issue. I had to switch to Windows to take calls, but now at least it works with an external mic. – Vedprakash Upraity Jan 15 '20 at 09:38
  • After following this instruction, the headset with the microphone started working. However, the built-in microphone in the laptop still does not work. Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro - Black Edition. – Mat Pa Jan 10 '21 at 17:20
  • It's the same for me, yes. I think there is no (working) driver for the internal mic. – Joe123 Jan 17 '21 at 17:16
  • @Joe123 meh It is not the first time that Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro turns out to be a bad choice ;) Acer Nitro likes to make problems. A unique, unpopular wifi card, another time a microphone. Let us continue in misery. :) – Mat Pa Jan 23 '21 at 15:28
2

I have this model with the same problem but have made some progress. It seems the config file is not set up optimally when the system installs.

I edited my configuration file by typing

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

then added this line at the end

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

select the correct microphone inputs using pavucontrol (type pavucontrol into a terminal)

and set some levels in alsamixer (type alsamixer into a terminal).

It helps to have a webcam with sound as this is recognised more readily and is more obvious to help with making setting. I managed to record from the laptops built in speakers at least when I had the webcam plugged in.

but I need to play around with it some more. I am not sure it works 100% but at least I can record audio now-even if only via the webcam.

I hope this is fixed by updates in the future.

graham
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Steve
  • 21
0

I have an acer aspire one but have had ongoing problems with the internal microphone on any ubuntu-based distro that I've used (mint, bodhi) with that machine. I am not sure if this solution will apply to your situation but the only thing I have found to work is in a terminal (ctrl+alt+T): $: alsamixer F4

and then arrow key over to the capture setting and set the left channel of capture to zero (by pressing z. You can use up arrow to set both channels to 100 and then use z to set left channel to 0 if necessary). This bug seems to affect a lot of users (search for skype and acer aspire one microphone problems). It's not the most ideal solution, but I have been unable to find a better fix so far.

There's some information here about the AspireOne522 specs and functionality in ubuntu from the official documentation as well: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne522

Sound

The internal speaker works partly(left channel only). Note the following >about headphones and microphone (internal or external).

onyinyang
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