Hi,

I'm having mic problems with snd_maestro3 and es1988 allegro hw. The laptop is HP OmniBook Xe3. The mic is way too silent (unusable) even with 20db boost option on. I found this seems to have been really common problem, but only one came with a fix [1] to the problem, enabling one more bit to volume control. Could someone please help me apply that fix to current alsa?

I tried compiling 2.6.26.2 kernel and made the first change of the patch from mail [1] attachement [2]. No change. The second part of patch I did not find anymore from the code. There are similar parts in ac97_patch.c. Any hint what should be added there?

The original patched code is somewhat outdated compared to modern one... But the reasoning for the original patch sounds reasonable. The mic volume is tunable, only at the very low range. I recall the laptop came with Win98, and there was no problem then with the sound -> not a HW problem. I have never got this laptop mic working with linux, so this is not anything that broke recently. I see there is check_volume_resolution function which tries to guess some of the register ranges, but maybe it get's it wrong with this HW.

I tried with external headset, the behavior is just the same. The headset is working fine with IBM T41, so not due the mic itself.

Any help would be preciated, thanks,

ikke

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/2025 [2] http://cache.gmane.org//gmane/linux/alsa/devel/2025-001.bin

Other posts related, with no solutions:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.user/9802 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.user/15260 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.user/9663 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/27195

HW is HP Omnibook Xe3, 00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1 (rev 12) Ubuntu up to date hardy, with manually compiled linux-2.6.26.2.

the patch: ----------------------------------- --- ac97_codec.c Fri Jun 21 16:09:15 2002 +++ /usr/src/linux/sound/pci/ac97/ac97_codec.c Sun Jun 16 21:56:00 2002 @@ -579,7 +579,7 @@

static const snd_kcontrol_new_t snd_ac97_controls_mic[3] = { AC97_SINGLE("Mic Playback Switch", AC97_MIC, 15, 1, 1), -AC97_SINGLE("Mic Playback Volume", AC97_MIC, 0, 15, 1), +AC97_SINGLE("Mic Playback Volume", AC97_MIC, 0, 31, 1), AC97_SINGLE("Mic Boost (+20dB)", AC97_MIC, 6, 1, 0) };

@@ -1137,7 +1137,7 @@ for (idx = 0; idx < 3; idx++) if ((err = snd_ctl_add(card, snd_ac97_cnew(&snd_ac97_controls_mic[idx], ac97))) < 0) return err; - snd_ac97_write_cache(ac97, AC97_MIC, 0x801f); + snd_ac97_write_cache(ac97, AC97_MIC, 0x805f);

/* build Line controls */ for (idx = 0; idx < 2; idx++) -----------------------------------

amixer settings: ----------------------------------- $ amixer Simple mixer control 'Master',0 Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Mono: Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [-15.00dB] [on] Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [-15.00dB] [on] Simple mixer control 'Master Mono',0 Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Mono Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Mono: Playback 31 [100%] [0.00dB] [on] Simple mixer control '3D Control - Center',0 Capabilities: volume volume-joined Playback channels: Mono Capture channels: Mono Limits: 0 - 15 Mono: 15 [100%] Simple mixer control '3D Control - Depth',0 Capabilities: volume volume-joined Playback channels: Mono Capture channels: Mono Limits: 0 - 15 Mono: 15 [100%] Simple mixer control 'PCM',0 Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Mono: Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Simple mixer control 'Line',0 Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Capture [off] Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'CD',0 Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Capture [off] Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'Mic',0 Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Playback channels: Mono Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Mono: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Front Left: Capture [on] Front Right: Capture [on] Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost (+20dB)',0 Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Mono Mono: Playback [on] Simple mixer control 'Mic Select',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'Mic1' 'Mic2' Item0: 'Mic1' Simple mixer control 'Video',0 Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Front Left: Capture [off] Front Right: Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'Phone',0 Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Playback channels: Mono Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Playback 0 - 31 Mono: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on] Front Left: Capture [off] Front Right: Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'PC Speaker',0 Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Mono Limits: Playback 0 - 15 Mono: Playback 15 [100%] [0.00dB] [on] Simple mixer control 'Aux',0 Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Front Left: Capture [off] Front Right: Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'Mono Output Select',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'Mix' 'Mic' Item0: 'Mix' Simple mixer control 'Capture',0 Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: Capture 0 - 15 Front Left: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on] Front Right: Capture 15 [100%] [22.50dB] [on] Simple mixer control 'Mix',0 Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Front Left: Capture [off] Front Right: Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'Mix Mono',0 Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-exclusive Capture exclusive group: 0 Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Front Left: Capture [off] Front Right: Capture [off] Simple mixer control 'External Amplifier',0 Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined Playback channels: Mono Mono: Playback [off] -----------------------------------

---> looking at the mic range it seems to be 0-31 already, capture is only 0-15, I wonder if that's right...