[alsa-devel] [pulseaudio-discuss] Front mic not working properly

[Raymond Yau]

>> >
>> > I'm totally stuck with a sound problem I fail to debug on my own.
>> >
>> > My setup:
>> > Asus P5Q Motherboard with Realtec ALC1200 soundchip. Stereo speakers
plugged in to the rear output and headphone speaker/mic combo plugged in to
the front jacks. System: Ubuntu 12.10

>> > Desired behaviour: Sound is played back on headphones AND rear
speaker. Front mic should "just-work"

Asus P5Q specification

Realtek ALC1200, 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
- Support Jack-Detection, Multi-streaming, and Front Panel Jack-Retasking

Alt_playback is still not enabled to support multi streaming playback on
realtec codecs

>> > Problem 2:
>> > This is the biggest problem.
>> > As soon as I plug in the front mic, Inside gnome-alsamixer the volume
for master, surround,center,lfe start to jump between on and off. Why is
the Front mic jack controlling these values?

Do you mean BIOS did not setup pin default correctly after asus-p5q model
was removed?

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git;a=commitdiff;h=6fdfa361282a69fc9bfea4dd7d6303adc9e4d6df;hp=4586b2b583e9bb3df8cf5586469c2c19bd6b31d2

> How can I debug this behaviour?

Post the output of alsa-info.sh

> I just want them to stay the same, if the mic is plugged in or not.
>> > Inside the gnome volume settings, the output port starts to jump
between "Analog Output" and "Analog Headphones"
>>
>> This look like problem in Jack detection of the headphone and Mic Jack
of front audio panel
>>
>> alsamixer -c0
>>
>> Does the playback switch change rapidly on and off in alsamixer ?
>>
>> Do your computer chassis have a hda front audio panel and you connect
them to the front audio connector of the motherboard according to the user
manual ?
>>
>> Does it help if you disabled the automute switch ?
>>
> Thanks a lot. Your input helped me to at least work around the problem.
My chassis has a HDA and an AC97 connector. The HDA connector was plugged
in and correctly configured in BIOS.
> I now use the AC97 connector (and changed the BIOS settings) and
everything is working properly.

Checking the front audio panel specification of your computer chassis

Setting front audio panel to AC97 in BIOS of Asus motherboard change the
miscellaneous bit of pin default of front HP and Mic Jack （i.e. misc =
NO_PRESENCE)

The alsa driver won't enable the unsolicited event on these nodes

>
> Regarding your questions: Disabling automute didn't help. And yes, the
playback switch toggled rapidly.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=261c2407401ca26fa17f05667ea68f51e12c5303

Try disable trigger sense by

codec->no_trigger_sense = 1;

>
> One thing I didn't test: I mistakenly plugged the rear speaker into the
front channel jack (plugging the green connector into a green jack seemed
so obvious). I don't know is this is the same channel as the headphone
connector on the front panel...
>
> In AC97 mode it doesn't matter if I use the front channel jack or the
rear channel jack (both at the rear of the computer) to connect my main
speakers.