Hello all- I am seeking help trying to figure out why my internal microphone isn’t being detected. I have followed a lot of troubleshooting audio guides such as this one and none of it has worked.

I’m on Pop_OS, with wayland, on an Asus laptop,

Here is more info if anyone could by chance help me

arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC294 Analog [ALC294 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

systemctl --user status pipewire

● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-07-03 15:19:48 EDT; 24h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 2192 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 18486)
     Memory: 16.4M
        CPU: 15.088s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─2192 /usr/bin/pipewire

Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os systemd[2182]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os pipewire[2192]: mod.jackdbus-detect: Failed to receive jackdbus reply:>
lines 1-13/13 (END)

some more info: https://pastebin.com/embed_js/6vR5ZEXw

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I am new to linux so please don’t make fun of me too much if what i’m sharing doesn’t make any sense!!

  • 486@lemmy.world
    5·
    1 day ago

    It is probably due to this change in the Linux kernel. That broke analogue microphone inputs on lots of systems. After that change, there were quite a few additional patches fixing those problems on individual systems (e.g. this one), but there are still lots of broken setups around. I have no idea what the original change was about exactly. It appears to have broken more things than it has fixed, but what do I know.

      • 486@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 day ago

        Yes. Apparently the issue happens with both internal mics and mic connectors where you attach your own mic. The seconds link I provided points to a fix for a specific laptop that fixes a non-working internal mic.

        • Crash@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          9 hours ago

          sorry if this is dumb but i can’t see where on that second link it gives a fix?

          • 486@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 hours ago

            No, it is not dumb. My second link was just an example to a fix of one particular laptop where this issue occurred. I mentioned all this just to point to the issue that might be causing your problem. I’m afraid this probably does not fix it for you. Maybe it has been fixed with a more recent kernel. You could check which version you are running (by running uname -a from a terminal) and maybe update to a newer one if your distro allows that. Alternatively you could downgrade the kernel to a version before this issue was introduced (a 6.10 kernel should work okay). Of course downgrading should only be a stop-gap solution.

    • Crash@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      I tried and it didn’t do anything :( I am curious if i did something wrong with setting up wireplumber vs pipewire or pulseaudio or something?

      • Novocirab@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        It was a bit of a long shot experiment to begin with. The commands I posted can be useful when an audio device suddenly stops working after it has been working initially during a session, but since your problem is most likely about your device not being recognized at any time, it’s not too surprising that they don’t do much. Just worth the try.

    • Crash@lemmy.mlOP
      3·
      1 day ago

      ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ASUSLaptop_Q530VJ

      I’m trying to see if maybe i’ve done something where I have pipewire, pulseaudio, wireplumber all set up at the same time? I also don’t really understand the difference between them

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
        41·
        16 hours ago

        Okay, so this is one of Asus’s consumer models that fits in the “Windowstop” category, meaning a lot of the hardware is going to be windows-only for various reasons.

        It’s got an ALC272 which IS supported, but that doesn’t mean the microphone will be, especially if it’s on the USB bus for whatever reason.

        Couple questions:

        1. Do other microphones work, just not internal?
        2. Does your volume control work as expected
        3. Does the webcam work, and does the internal microphone work only when the webcam is engaged?
        4. What do apps like Discord or Zoom detect as available for your inputs?

        As a test, install pavucontrol and qasmixer. Open pavucontrol, and check ALL the input settings (there are many combos). If nothing there shows activity, launch qasmixer, select the ‘hw’ view on the right, then try selecting different mixers and see if one finally clicks.

        If any of these are successful, your mic is detected, and your mixer settings are messed up so it’s not being enabled as an input sink.

        If none of these work, you’re going to have to dig restart, then run sudo dmesg and grep through looking for information regarding audio devices, or similar errors to see if it can’t detect it.

        From the product specs, it looks like it might have Harmon Kardon speakers, which may also tie into the microphone, and that’s going to be problematic if it’s a USB device for a number of reasons I won’t dive into. Overall, this model just seems to be problematic from digging around. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/160d3wj/asus_creator_laptop_q530v_constant_problems/

        • Crash@lemmy.mlOP
          2·
          9 hours ago
          1. other microphones work but the quality is bad
          2. volume control works as expected
          3. Webcam works just no sound.
          4. when i go on zoom or discord there is no available inputs

          the internal mic used to work but then I had to do some update and now its not.

          Is there a chance that there is some config file that is blocking something? like i made some kind of setting in a config file that is making this happen?