Built-in microphone not working on Acer Aspire

Newbie here, so please excuse anything trivial I may have missed.

I have a Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592G. I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 on it, and it is working mostly fine.

One thing I didn't get to work is the built-in microphone. I tried all the solutions involving changes in alsa-base.conf, to no avail. I also tried installing pavucontrol, but I could not see my microphone in the interface.

Right now, in my sounds setting, I have:

• with my headphones (no mic) on: headphones/analog input (no speakers option)

• with my headphones off: speakers/analog input

Both headphones and speakers work fine, but the analog input shows no signs of activity.

Anyone has any idea how I can get this to work?

This is what sudo aplay -l returns:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC255 Analog [ALC255 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Solution 1:

SOLUTION for external microphone:

• As recommended by Steve, edit the alsa config file

  sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

• Add this line at the end of the file and save it

  options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

• Reboot ! (just logging out+in didn't work for me)

• Plug in your mic + go to sound settings

• Select "Headset-Microphone"

• Change to "Microphone"

That's how it works for me :) Internal microphone is still not working, though.

EDIT: If you are using a headset (headphones with integrated mic): first select "Microphone" then select "Headset-Microphone".

My Laptop: Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592

PS: I think the combined audio/headset-jack on this Laptop was the problem here. Maybe this also helps for other Laptops with combined audio jacks (combo jack, combined mic jack).

Update: Still working the same on Ubuntu 19.04

Solution 2:

I have this model with the same problem but have made some progress. It seems the config file is not set up optimally when the system installs.

I edited my configuration file by typing

sudo gedit  etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

then added this line at the end

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

select the correct microphone inputs using pavucontrol (type pavucontrol into a terminal)

and set some levels in alsamixer (type alsamixer into a terminal).

It helps to have a webcam with sound as this is recognised more readily and is more obvious to help with making setting. I managed to record from the laptops built in speakers at least when I had the webcam plugged in.

but I need to play around with it some more. I am not sure it works 100% but at least I can record audio now-even if only via the webcam.

I hope this is fixed by updates in the future.