mic problems in skype

[reggler]

Hi There,

I can not get my mike working with skype... I have played around with KMix and installed Audacity to see if i can get any kind of wave form going.
Now if I talk into the microphone, I can hear it on my speakers but neither audacity nor skype would "take" the sounds from the mic...
my controller:

reg@reg-desktop:~$ lspci | grep Audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

Oh, and I have the mic (headset) connected to the front mic connector...

[GreyGeek]

Re: mic problems in skype

My audio chip is the Intel ICH9 family, and it works well "out of the box".

Off hand we have at least two tools to help us. First let's check out KMixer.

The "Configure channels" option should give a dialog with two panels: controls not being displayed are in the left panel, controls that are displayed in KMixer are in the right panel.

Check the left panel for two specific controls: "PCM" and "Digital". IF they are on the left side drag them to the right side. Then close the dialog and on the main KMixer dialog raise their levels to 95% or higher. Make sure they are not muted.

If KMixer's left side channel configuration dialog does not contain "PCM" or "Digital" then open a Konsole and run "alsamixer". The Konsole app will show sliders. Make sure your ICH8 is selected. (Sometimes audio chips are confused with modems) Run the Master and PCM up to 95% or more. If you don't see the "Digital" slicer it may be off the right end of the visible part of the dialog. Use the right arrow to move to the "Digital" control and slide it up. Use "Esc" to exit.

Now fire up Skype and in the sound settings dialog use the test sound button. If you don't hear any sound then try one of the other sound options in the dropdown dialog button until you find one that works.

[reggler]

Re: mic problems in skype

My audio chip is the Intel ICH9 family, and it works well "out of the box".

Off hand we have at least two tools to help us. First let's check out KMixer.

The "Configure channels" option should give a dialog with two panels: controls not being displayed are in the left panel, controls that are displayed in KMixer are in the right panel.

Check the left panel for two specific controls: "PCM" and "Digital". IF they are on the left side drag them to the right side. Then close the dialog and on the main KMixer dialog raise their levels to 95% or higher. Make sure they are not muted.

If KMixer's left side channel configuration dialog does not contain "PCM" or "Digital" then open a Konsole and run "alsamixer". The Konsole app will show sliders. Make sure your ICH8 is selected. (Sometimes audio chips are confused with modems) Run the Master and PCM up to 95% or more. If you don't see the "Digital" slicer it may be off the right end of the visible part of the dialog. Use the right arrow to move to the "Digital" control and slide it up. Use "Esc" to exit.

Now fire up Skype and in the sound settings dialog use the test sound button. If you don't hear any sound then try one of the other sound options in the dropdown dialog button until you find one that works.

Yep, I had them selected and turned up already, no muting as far as i can see. Sound output works fine with speakers and headset but i don't get the mic to process incoming sound other than forward it to the speakers again...
Sweet, I tried all the mic options in the drop down until I found one working: 'HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog (hw:0, 2)' I'm wondering why there's so many and how come only this one works, any clue...? Thanks a lot for your help! This is awesome!

[GreyGeek]

Re: mic problems in skype

....
Sweet, I tried all the mic options in the drop down until I found one working: 'HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog (hw:0, 2)' I'm wondering why there's so many and how come only this one works, any clue...? Thanks a lot for your help! This is awesome!

Glad to help!

Audio chips deliver several sound capabilities. Besides the regular "analog" sound it has midi output, frequency range controllers, high def, and controller logic for PCI, USB and LAN controlled functions. It has to be switchable from speaker to headphones and back. When developers write drivers for sound chips they have to interpret the chip data sheets (IF such are made available to them by the vendor, otherwise they resort to reverse engineering) when they write the code.

Many times the documentation is sparse or not available. Sometimes, as in the case of the Foxconn BIOS chip, the firmware specifically checks for the presence of Linux and if found aborts or routes the Linux to never-never land. When the Linux detection routines were replaced with NOP (no operation) code and the Windows destination address vector was used Linux worked perfectly well.

But, I expect the negativity to pass as more vendors are coming around to working with Linux because they recognize its market force and because a LOT of the Fortune 1000 are/have adopting/adopted Linux, especially in light of the .NET fiasco with London Stock Market trading program and the recent ASP.NET malware that is now tearing up XP, VISTA and Win7 installations around the world.