ThinkPad microphone not working

[stan]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:34:39 +0200
suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux at gmail.com> wrote:
 
> For the last 2 weeks the microphone on my ThinkPad has stopped
> working. At first I thought the volume levels must have gone down, but
> I see using alsamixer they are all normal.arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav
> -D copy foobar.wav
> 
> I'm using F16. My understanding of alsa is rather limited, Anyone has
> any ideas how I can troubleshoot this?

Did anything change around the time the mic stopped working?

I don't think this is an alsa issue.  If alsamixer sees the mic, then
alsa is handling it properly, if the driver and hardware are OK.

Install pavucontrol and check how pulse is viewing the microphone.
Perhaps it inadvertently got turned off?

Look for permission conflicts, including SELinux, in the logs, when you
try to use the mic.

Try using arecord to record directly from alsa into a wav.
arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav foobar.wav
If the default device doesn't work, you can try 
arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav -D plughw:0 foobar.wav
or 
arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav -D plughw:1 foobar.wav

If none of these work, I would suspect hardware failure.