Audio test not successful

Thanks for your question.

You might want to try the gnome-sound-recorder, to check if you're able to record your voice properly. If it does not work, please double check your sound settings (Mic-Volume, Mic-Boost).

I tried the gnome-sound-recorder, I couldn't record from microphone. If I unmute microphone, I can hear my sound instantly via line out 1 that can be controlled by the master slider. It is odd, but I think that I did not hear my sound first, even if the settings were same. Now it seems that only master and microphone settings matter in Volume Control 2.14.2.

We need a few more information:

1) Please download http://www.linux-sound.info/alsa/scripts/alsa-info.sh
2) Please do a chmod +x alsa-info.sh in the download directory
3) run ./alsa-info.sh
4) Please attach the pastebin.ca link to this question.

Ok, here is the link: http://pastebin.ca/509318

I will check the settings of my Sound Blaster, when back in office. So far, I don't recognize any suspicious setting.

Maybe we're able to solve this issue faster if you try the following procedure:

1) Open your gnome mixer applet and enable every single slider in the preferences. After that, please unmute every slider, raise volume and try recording again.
2) Please also try to use KMix and Alsamixergui to ensure you really found every mixer
3) Try to toggle mic-capture off while recording

Just a curiosity: Moving PS/2 mouse gives slight noise in line out 1, if microphone is unmuted.

Would you mind adding the output of "cat /proc/interrupts" to the question?

No.

$ cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0
  0: 108840 XT-PIC timer
  1: 194 XT-PIC i8042
  2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
  7: 0 XT-PIC parport0
  8: 3 XT-PIC rtc
 11: 105582 XT-PIC uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb3, ehci_hcd:usb4, EMU10K1, hcfpcihw, eth0, mga@pci:0000:01:00.0
 14: 6360 XT-PIC ide0
 15: 12785 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

Aaah, here we go.

It seems your USB, sound card and ethernet card are sharing the same IRQ. This could be the source of your problems. If you use a USB mouse, this could explain your "mouse noise".

To check if this is indeed the problem, please disable USB and Ethernet via BIOS and try to record again. If it still does not, please try running cat /proc/interrupts again (while still having disabled parts of your system), to check if you really disabled every possible problematic hardware.

It's just a check. If it works after you disabled the hardware, we'll find a workaround, so you may use USB and Ethernet again.

USB mouse does not make noise, only the one in the PS/2 connector. Maybe I can try disabling USB and Ethernet anyway.

Please do so!

I tried to disable the PCI devices (also "Other input controller"), but I could not boot linux, the startup freezed at Loading hardware devices stage.

After restoring BIOS settings and rebooting, I found at some point, that the microphone sound does disappeared in line out 1. I tried adjusting sliders in Volume Control and when I adjusted control named "3D Control Sigmatel - Depth", the sound came back. Afterwards adjusting the same slider had no effect on sound.. until I switched "3D control Switch". The sound was gone again. Afterwards, there is no effec on the switch, except that it gives a nap when switched, and when checked, adjusting "3D Control Sigmatel - Depth" slider naps. Then suddently, when I was not touching anything, the sound came back; I could hear it right away, as Mic Boost is checked. Afterwards, modifying "3D Control Sigmatel - Depth" and "3D control Switch" settings do not remove sound that comes from the microphone. Maybe the sound card is broken? (I have a couple of second hand spare parts.)

Let's try the following, I don't like giving up to fast :->:

1) run "sudo rmmod uhci_hcd"
2) run "sudo rmmod hcfpcihw" (do you run a modem?, maybe you could add a full lspci output and/or remove the modem)
3) run "sudo rmmod <your network driver>" (you may find the name of your ethernet kernel module in the dmesg output)
4) test sound and mic

Don't reboot! rmmod just removes the kernel module from the running kernel. After a reboot, your system is "back to normal".

Some good news:

I switched sound card to another one, same model SB though. I put it to a different slot; now there are two other slots between AGP and SB. (This is mainly because I wanted to put my ehternet card "one slot away from AGP" as some sources say that it is usually the best slot for that; I've had problems with Wake on LAN property. BTW I just want to be sure, does "one slot away from AGP" mean that there is one other slot between AGP and ehternet card?) Anyway, I started computer and for some time I coudl record! Odd thing is that microphone setting does not apply. I had to check rec setting of Capture slider and adjust the Capture slider in GNOME ALSA Mixer. After that I could record in the Sound Recorder. (Even if I have Microphone selected for "Record input from", it changes to "Capture" once I start recording. This is because of the rec setting of Capture.) There were differences between differnet mixers. I think they are not syncing in every case. Secondly, changing Capture slider level in Volume Control (started from Sound Recorder) had no effect in recod volume, but adjusting the same slider in GNOME ALSA Mixer had.

Bad news:

Linux lost internet connection after I put the ethernet card to a different slot. How can you tell linux to use the card in the differnet slot?
The microphone stopped working again. Removing the kernel modules did not help after this.

Allright, it seems you're experiencing hardware problems, as you guessed before.

There's just one rule for placing the cards into the slots: watch temperature. As the graphics card is normally one of the hottest one (at least if it is "high end", it's not advised to put the network card in direct neighborhood. Every other slot will be fine.

You don't have to tell linux that you changed slots, Linux will do just fine, independent of your slot choice. I'm afraid you have to play "slot puzzle", to find the best order of your cards, until every function works as it should.

If you can't get network to work again (in a different slot), check if lspci recognizes the card. It's not uncommon, that one of the slots does not work at all, or just produces failures. Maybe it's the same slot, where the soundcard resides before?

I got internet connection working; I just physically removed all PCI cards except the sound card and the ethernet card, no need to put ethernet card it in differnet slot.

I found a bug report related to the problems with the Sound Recorder and some mixers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-media/+bug/53448 (Please, see my comment there.)

Mixers seem to be buggy. My best bet is gnome-alsamixer, but it gives this output when run in terminal:
** (gnome-alsamixer:5451): WARNING **: gam_toggle_get_state (). No idea what to do for mixer element "Mic Select"!
/bin/sh: /usr/bin/esd: No such file or directory

Some info about current state of system:

$ cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0
  0: 5660684 XT-PIC timer
  1: 14288 XT-PIC i8042
  2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
  7: 0 XT-PIC parport0
  8: 4 XT-PIC rtc
 11: 9397121 XT-PIC uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb3, ehci_hcd:usb4, hcfpcihw, EMU10K1, eth0, mga@pci:0000:01:00.0
 12: 31602 XT-PIC i8042
 14: 38810 XT-PIC ide0
 15: 1101830 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

http://pastebin.ca/516364

Just a funny coincidence: I'm experiencing the same problem with a private computer at the moment. Same kernel module (EMU10K1), just stopped recording voice. Trying to figure out what happend.

For me it worked setting these settings in qamix:

In Capture tab:
-Activate Capture
-Adjust Capture to 100.
-Adjust AC97 Capture to 100.
-Mic select: Mic1
-Capture source: Mic Mic

Does this work for you?

No, already tried that. Thanks anyway :-)

 I'll just wait until next update, as it's not that important for me.

Actually, better to Adjust Capture to 0 in qamix. (During Skype test call it is set to maximum value automatically, though.)