jojonouvo wrote:This is the result of amixer: . . .
I don't see anything unusual in your text output from amixer. There seem to be no controls related to the microphone input or capture that you didn't already see in alsamixer, and the controls seem to all be set appropriately. So no clues there.
I found an alsa-info.sh report on your make and model (although "S53", not "S53W"):
alsa-info: BenQ Joybook S53 But I found no clues there either.
Looking around the Web, I see that you are certainly not alone with this problem. You've probably already found many posts from people with the same sound chip and even the same make and model of PC as you. (A sampling:
tough problem with microphone,
Joybook s53 microphone doesn't work . . .) No one ever finds a solution.
The latter of the above-mentioned posts mentions a certain symptom: changing the Surround slider also changes the Mic slider. Does this happen for you? If so, it would show beyond doubt that this problem was certainly a bug, and not a configuration problem.
jojonouvo wrote:. . . can you use drivers that i guess are created for winXP?
Although its fairly common to use network drivers designed for Windows with Linux, I am not aware of anyone doing something similar with sound drivers. Of course, anything is possible, but I suspect that it would be a very long road.
jojonouvo wrote:Or what if I use a different version of alsa? Or something else (jack, oss)?
I don't believe that JACK will talk to the hardware. As far as I know it only talks to OSS, or ALSA (or FFADO for FireWire hardware).
OSS is a possibility, but I'm not sure where you would look for a binary compatible with your kernel.
Although you can get the source code (
OSS source download site)and compile it yourself, be aware that a prebuilt binary of OSS from 4Front Technologies is commercial software, with a commercial license. If you want to use it for more than one year, or if you want any support from them, you need to send 4Front Technologies 30 USD. Also, they don't list the 3.x.x Linux kernels. Perhaps their build for 2.6 Linux kernels would work, but wouldn't they want to make that clear on their web site if that is the case?
As for a different version of ALSA, that too is a possibility, but I wouldn't hold my breath. If there is an ALSA bug, it is probably in the driver, and the ALSA drivers are part of the kernel. So a newer kernel is more likely to help than an newer ALSA package.
Taking a quick look at the kernel history for the snd-intel8x0 and snd-hda-intel drivers, I didn't see any recent fixes that seemed to apply to your case.
I did see this:
ALSA: hda - Fix auto-mic detection in Conexant codec-parser, but that was way back on 2011-May-23. Slacko 5.3.3 includes that fix, since its kernel is 3.1.10 (2012-Jan-18 ), so you've already tried that (assuming that the Slacko you tried
was Slacko 5.3.3 or newer -- you just said that you "booted from a slacko", so if it was an older one, you should try 5.3.3).
jojonouvo wrote:Ok, I have also booted from a live ubuntu Mint distro. . .
What version of Mint? This makes it clear that this is not just a Puppy problem, but doesn't give us a clue about what ALSA or kernel versions were used. If it was Mint 12, it used the same ALSA version as Slacko 5.3.3 and an older kernel, so there would be no surprise that it failed. But if it was Mint 13, it has the newer ALSA 1.0.25, and the newer 3.2 kernel.
I did see this change, which is also an old one (2011-May-13), but verifies that using "model=auto", as recommended by darkcity, is a valid option:
ALSA: hda - Add support of auto-parser to cxt5047 / CX20551 Waikiki. Looking at the source code I see that other "model=" options used with the cx20551 are "laptop", "laptop-hp", "laptop-eapd", and, if compiled with CONFIG_SND_DEBUG, "test". That doesn't mean that those options would work on your laptop, only that they work with some PC that also uses your sound chip. One of those models might be similar enough to your model to work with yours, or not. (If you decide to try them, remember to reboot after editing the file.) It is possible that the ALSA developers need to come up with another model option specifically designed for your PC.
It may be time for you to file a bug report with ALSA. But there is a bit of a problem. I've been trying to search ALSA's
Bug Tracker for the past couple of days, to see if a similar bug has already been reported, but all I am getting are "Failed to Connect" messages from their server. Perhaps the server will be up again soon. One can only hope. (Does anyone know if that server is permanently dead?)