Microphone not working need some help...

[Frans Ketelaars]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:59:19 -0600, Larry Shields wrote:

> *I have posted this a while back but never got any responses, hopefully
> this time...

Yup, if you didn't get a reply on the first try, you can try to repost it 
after some days, someone might have missed the earlier post or was too 
busy. An earlier post from you mentioned the error message when trying to 
start alsamixer, these error messages are great for a google search.
 
> **I have a motherboard the ASUS M5a78L-M LX -by Asus the built-in sound
> card it is a *Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel
> HDA)...
> 
> *Now I am having a problem in trying to get the mic working, the sound
> is ok...
> For some reason I no-longer can bring up the GUI ALSAMIXER showing the
> bar levels, maybe it is because it is using pulseaudio I really do not
> know...
> 
> Does anyone know of another GUI that one can use to see or check if the
> mic is muted or to see the graph when speaking into the mic...???
> 
> Might anyone using Ubuntu's Lucid have the fix for this...???
> 
> Any help would be appreciated...
> 
> Thanks Larry
> *

Googling -> "load mixer controls: Invalid argument" ubuntu lucid <- found 
among others these bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-utils/+bug/613248 and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/703464 .

Googling just -> "load mixer controls: Invalid argument" <- shows a lot 
of posts with "cannot load mixer controls: Invalid argument" as response 
to trying to start ALSAMIXER. 

Different solutions are posted, and some even work :)

Good luck!

    -Frans