Sigmatel line in through mic socket?

It has been reported that the line in does function as a stereo line-in unlike the mono only input jack of the previous line of Inspirons with the Sigmatel STAC 975x chip.

I think it would be safe to try by connecting a device such as an ipod or whatever with its volume set to zero and then very gradually increasing. I'd plug in while the computer is off.

Jim

Thanks Jim, I'll try it and let you know. Gavin

Thanks Jim, you gave me the confidence to try a line signal thru the mic socket ... and it worked a treat! Well done. By the way what audio software are you using to record? We're using Nero 7 premium (wave editor).
Gavin

Gavin,

I write and play music and record it mostly with Sonar 1.3 and Sonar 4 which are multitracking audio and midi recorders. I also use the Creative Mediasource recorder that came with a Soundblaster external soundcard. I also have some other recorders including Audacity that I rarely use.

I got the external soundcard because my model Inspiron does not have a line-in, only mono mic. But usually I just use the Sigmatel's mic jack. The mic preamp is connected to it.

Jim

Thanks for the info Jim. It was most kind of you to resolve my dilemma so quickly and effectively. You may be interested to know that Dell tech support took a week to respond to the same question by email. They asked me to restate the question several times along the way and finally closed the communication with these words:

"Unfortunately, I would not be able to offer support on this problem you are facing as it is a customer usage issue. Regards, Alan Wright,Dell E-Support, Dimension/ Inspiron"

Why exactly "a customer usage issue" absolves Dell from any responsibility to help a customer who has just spent nearly $2000 on a high end Dell laptop is a complete mystery to me. I also talked to Sigmatel HQ in Texas. They said they couldn't even consider questions about the basic capabilities of their hardware unless I had a Sigmatel contact name. However, they suggested I address the question to Dell!

Thank God there are still some good guys around ... like you.

Kind regards,
Gavin

That's all great, but how are you meant to hear what you're recording if you have the headphone jack connected to the line/mic-in?

The sigmatel drivers need to add a "wave-out"/"what u hear" option in the record panel of windows volume control panel. Has anyone reported this to them as a feature request?

Jim, i saw in another post that you know something about registry entries for the sigmatel chip: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&message.id=27868

I did a search for "record" and there's an entry which has an ascii description of what inputs are available in the record panel, but i doubt that just adding another description would enable the functionality we're looking for...

Do you think it might be possible to get this working without the jack-to-jack connection idea?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1404450&posted=1#post1404450 - Possible fix?

tameruk,

"but how are you meant to hear what you're recording if you have the headphone jack connected to the line/mic-in?

Do you think it might be possible to get this working without the jack-to-jack connection idea?"

??? That is not what I understood the topic of this thread to be.


That person in the other forum who copied and pasted my instructions on enabling monitoring with the Sigmatel 92xx chip left off some of it, most importantly any credit to the ones who discovered the edit. Here it is in its entirety:



Dells ships Inspirons with the ability to monitor the input jack turned off. For models with the Sigmatel 92xx audio chip & driver an edit in the Registry of the subkey EnableInputMonitor will restore the monitoring function.

DIRECTIONS FOR MODELS WITH STAC92xx DRIVERS ONLY(B120 & 130, 1300, XPS 140m & 630m, 6400/E1505, 9400/E1705)

[It is wise to create a System Restore point before editing the Registry! If you accidentally make incorrect edits while in there you could cripple your computer, but using System Restore should correct any problems. To create a new Restore Point go to Start/Help & Support/System Restore and tick 'Create a restore point'.]

These instructions were provided by emann15 and The Performing Flea who discovered this edit.

1. Go to the Start menu and click on Run. Type 'regedit' without quotes and click OK to open the Registry.
2. At the top of the list, highlight My Computer.
3. Under the Edit menu, select Find.
4. Type in 'EnableInputMonitor' without quotes and click 'find next'.
5. Highlight EnableInputMonitor. Right click on it and select Modify.
6. Highlight 00 and change to 01. Click OK.
7. Repeat "find next" (F3) several more times and keep changing values to 01 until the "EnableInputMonitor"'s coming up are of the proper value.
8. Find a key named "EnableIntSpkrMute" and change its value from 01 to 00.
9. Exit the Registry and restart the computer.

Next, configure the system mixer:

1. Open Volume Control by right clicking on the speaker icon on the taskbar, or go to Start/Control Panel/ Sound & Audio Devices Properties/Advanced (button).
2. Under the Options menu, select Properties.
3.Under 'show the following volume controls' check the box next to Microphone. Click OK.
4. Make sure the mute box is unchecked.

For those familiar with the Registry here is the direct path to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\
{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0005\Settings\filter\Rear

Jim

Thanks Jim! That worked perfectly.

fixed it using inf from post #62 of this page http://www.notebookforums.com/thread169312-3.html

Sorry but I don't have Vista so no way to experiment. Someone will eventually come up with an edit and post it. If you or anyone else want to try just be sure to back up the Registry first.

Jim

ethan hines,

When you wrote

"Then Add the EnableInputMonitor with Binary Value 01"

did you mean that one should type in that line in the Vista Registry? Have you tried doing this and did it work for you?

Jim