Internal Microphone not working in Dell XPS 17 9710

Hi!
I’m a newbie to Fedora. The internal microphone is not working in f35 Workstation, Gnome, i.e. not working in Gnome Settings: Sound, Audacity, Sound Recorder. Also arecord -d 10 -f S16_BE -c 2 -r 48000 --device=“hw:1,4” test1.wav is not resulting in a playable file.
Edit2: The internal speakers work, though.

arecord -l results in:

arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 1: Jack In () []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 4: Microphone (
)
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

It’s a new install along side a W11 where the mic is working. Also a f36beta workstation life image on a USB stick is resulting in a working internal mic (No I don’t believe upgrading to f36 will magically resolve the issue). I hope the following is useful (how can I send the lengthy alsa-info.sh output?):

Firmware Version: 1.8.0
System SKU: 0A5D
Board Vendor: Dell Inc.
Board Name: 0TXN0W

uname -r: 5.17.5-200.fc35.x86_64

alsa-lib-1.2.6.1-3.fc35.x86_64
alsa-utils-1.2.6-1.fc35.x86_64
alsa-sof-firmware-2.0-2.fc35.noarch
alsa-utils-alsabat-1.2.6-1.fc35.x86_64
pipewire-0.3.51-1.fc35
pipewire-codec-aptx-0.3.49-1
wireplumber-0.4.9-1

$ systemctl --user status wireplumber.service results in:
● wireplumber.service - Multimedia Service Session Manager
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2022-05-08 18:07:35 EDT; 1h 26min ago
Main PID: 3131 (wireplumber)
Tasks: 4 (limit: 18811)
Memory: 5.3M
CPU: 345ms
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/wireplumber.service
└─3131 /usr/bin/wireplumber

May 08 18:07:35 fedox systemd[2613]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
May 08 18:07:35 fedox wireplumber[3131]: Failed to set scheduler settings: Operation not permitted
May 08 18:07:37 fedox wireplumber[3131]: Path rt715 Capture is not a volume or mute control

$ wpctl results in:
PipeWire ‘pipewire-0’ [0.3.51, jan@fedox, cookie:4145065432]
└─ Clients:
31. WirePlumber [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:3131]
32. WirePlumber [export] [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:3131]
38. GNOME Shell Volume Control [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:2821]
40. GNOME Volume Control Media Keys [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:3342]
81. xdg-desktop-portal [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:4713]
83. Firefox [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:4644]
89. wpctl [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:7538]
91. Mutter [0.3.51, jan@fedox, pid:2821]

Audio
├─ Devices:
│ 45. HDA NVidia [alsa]
│ 46. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller [alsa]

├─ Sinks:
│ 39. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller HDMI / DisplayPort 3 Output [vol: 1.00]
│ 51. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller HDMI / DisplayPort 2 Output [vol: 1.00]
│ 52. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller HDMI / DisplayPort 1 Output [vol: 1.00]
│ 53. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller Headphones [vol: 1.00]
│ * 54. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller Speaker [vol: 0.82]

├─ Sink endpoints:

├─ Sources:
│ 55. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller Headset Microphone [vol: 1.00]
│ * 56. Tiger Lake-H HD Audio Controller SoundWire microphones [vol: 1.12]

├─ Source endpoints:

└─ Streams:

Video
├─ Devices:
│ 41. Integrated_Webcam_HD [v4l2]
│ 42. Integrated_Webcam_HD [v4l2]
│ 43. Integrated_Webcam_HD [v4l2]
│ 44. Integrated_Webcam_HD [v4l2]

├─ Sinks:

├─ Sink endpoints:

├─ Sources:
│ * 47. Integrated_Webcam_HD
│ 49. Integrated_Webcam_HD

├─ Source endpoints:

└─ Streams:

Settings
└─ Default Configured Node Names:
0. Audio/Sink alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-12
1. Audio/Source alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__hw_sofsoundwire_4__source

The pipewire situation is new for me I was using other distros for a very long time. So I don’t understand what"s going on here. Any help is very much appreciated, as I am investigating this for a few weeks now using any commend I could find here and elsewhere (Arch forum, etc.).

Edit: I should add hardware information:
$ inxi -Axx
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-H HD Audio vendor: Dell
driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:43c8
Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie:
speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 8 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:228e
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.17.5-200.fc35.x86_64 running: yes
Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.51 running: yes

Of course, this system uses Intel Tiger Lake-H HD Audio and not NVIDIA audio.

Edit 2: Whether with Nvidia or Nvidia replaced by Nouveau, the problem remains the same.

With Gratitude,
Jan

Update (literally): The system got updated to fc36 – seemingly without further problems. Thank you Fedora community! Unfortunately the update did not resolve the issue. Now relevant parts do not look much different.
uname -r returns 5.17.5-300.fc36.x86_64
No version changes, just the fc36 releases:
alsa-lib.x86_64 1.2.6.1-4.fc36
alsa-sof-firmware.noarch 2.0-3.fc36
alsa-utils.x86_64 1.2.6-2.fc36
alsa-utils-alsabat.x86_64 1.2.6-2.fc36
pipewire.x86_64 0.3.51-1.fc36
pipewire-codec-aptx.x86_64 0.3.49-1.fc36
wireplumber.x86_64 0.4.9-1.fc36

Btw arecord -d 10 -f S16_LE -c 2 -r 48000 --device="hw:1,4" test1.wav in the first paragraph was butchered.

There was seldom an issue that took so much time and now I’m at the end of what I can do. Please help!

With Gratitude,
Jan

Hi,
finally I found the solution. These people explained it in a way so I could understand it: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/microphone-problems-arecord-will-not-work-4175560686/

I had to unmute the correct channel. This is what I did: Start alsamixer in the terminal. press F6 select the correct sound card. This is appears to be something unnecessary. It is not. Otherwise one would not get to see all the channels. Then see whether any of the channels are muted. I tried to find the problem for weeks worth of using alsamixer.

Now, how would you see whether a channel is muted (or in alsamixer speak toggled to not-capture)? That was not obvious to me. It is symbolized by 7 dashes ------- replacing the word CAPTURE. In other words you don’t even know that a channel adored with 7 dashes has anything to do with the problem of a muted mic. You toggle the capture state by pressing the space bar.

As a side note, the word MUTED is less than 7 dashes and so much more obvious what it means. Thus, using MUTED would be less redundant and way-less redundant than this lengthily post.

Edit and not a side note: How did the internal microphone get muted on a new install, in the first place? Wouldn’t it be better to not let this happen?

Best,
Jan