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Sound Recording With Intel High Definition Audio On Dell Latitude D820 & Gentoo

Tagged with: • • — ondrej at 1:08 pm on Friday, March 23, 2007

Larry the CowThe Dell latitude D820 notebook with the Intel High Definition Audio sound card (snd_hda_intel) has only one jack for microphone and line in inputs. The outcome of this feature was, that only the internal microphone input worked on Linux :)

It was a problem for a longer time, there was a possibility improve — to set the position_fix option, but it never worked for me.

Fortunately, I found an excellent guideline for Debian, where this problem is solved :) Let’s adopt the instructions for Gentoo.

Firstly, it is necessary to have ALSA modules of version 1.0.13 or newer.

Bash [Show Plain Code]:
  1. cat /proc/asound/version

The output should be:

TEXT [Show Plain Code]:
  1. Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.13 (Tue Nov 28 14:07:24 2006 UTC).

Add the model=ref option to the /etc/modules.d/snd_hda_intel file:

TEXT [Show Plain Code]:
  1. options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=ref

Update the configuration file for modules:

Bash [Show Plain Code]:
  1. modules-update

Restart ALSA:

Bash [Show Plain Code]:
  1.  

From now, your favourite sound card mixer application (AlsaMixer, KMix, …) should display three options for the Input Source field:

  • Mic for a microphone connected to the shared input jack.
  • Front Mic for the internal microphone in you notebook.
  • Line for a line in input connected to the shared input jack.

A screenshot of my KMix:
kmix screenshot with three options for Input Source field

Enjoy :)

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3 Comments »

11482

Comment by Eric

July 6, 2007 @ 9:17 pm

even after performing these instructions, I still do not have an option for “front mic”. I’m guessing that I’m missing something with the driver, but don’t know what. Any ideas or info on how to go about debugging this?

Thanks!

12022

Comment by ondrej

July 12, 2007 @ 7:45 pm

Hi Eric,

Try to check the dmesg output. Do you have a good ALSA module version? (cat /proc/asound/version)

Here is my kernel configuration (for a sound card):

Device Drivers  --->
  Sound  --->
    <M> Sound card support
    <M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
    <M>   Sequencer support
    <M>   OSS Mixer API
    <M>   OSS PCM (digital audio) API
    [*]     OSS PCM (digital audio) API - Include plugin system
    [*]   OSS Sequencer API
    PCI devices  --->
      <M> Intel HD Audio

Everything else is disabled (also OSS).

I hope I helped you somehow :)

Bye

42933

Comment by Kenny

February 11, 2008 @ 12:44 pm

Thanks for the tips! It works great for me after performing the above.

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