Comment 35 for bug 42600

Prinz Igor:
I have the same sound card as you have but have not been able to fix it with the fixes mentioned here. My hardware (laptop Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro V3205) has an internal microphone which works good (though it has a quite low volume). You could try that one by opening up the GNOME Volume Manager, press "Switches"-tab and then "IntMic". Make sure it is not muted or anything (I had to use "alsamixer" and go into "Capture"-mode to do that)...

Everyone else:
You are mentioning that you have a tab called "Options" in GNOME Volume Manager. The only tab I have are "Playback" and "Switches". Are the tabs in the Volume Manager audio device dependent or do you have a different version of it? The version is I'm using is '2.18.0'.

As I wrote to Igor I am experiencing the same problem (external microphone is absolutely quiet but internal microphone works) but the fixes you mention don't work for my (similar) hardware:

$ sudo lspci -vv
[...]
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown device 10ad
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 23
        Region 0: Memory at dc240000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=55mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
                Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [70] Express Unknown type IRQ 0
                Device: Supported: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, ExtTag-
                Device: Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                Device: Errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
                Device: RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+
                Device: MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes
                Link: Supported Speed unknown, Width x0, ASPM unknown, Port 0
                Link: Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us
                Link: ASPM Disabled CommClk- ExtSynch-
                Link: Speed unknown, Width x0
[...]