Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit on Sony VAIO VGN-NW240F

I own a Sony Vaio VGN-NW240F laptop purchased during Thanksgiving 2009. This laptop suits all of my needs. It runs Windows 7 (64-bit). For any Sony-Vaio laptop, one should ensure that the recovery disks, three in number, (at least in my case) should be created as quickly as possible.

Since most of my work is on Linux, I got about installing Ubuntu 10.04 on it. The architecture is amd64 for the 64-bit version. The installation is straightforward. The sound worked straight out-of-the-box. One can test by playing some music CD. Even the wireless network connectivity worked without hassle.

To test the built-in webcam all I had to do was install Skype (64-bit), launch Skype, and log on with my Skype user ID and password. Then I clicked on the blue-colored letter "S" at the bottom-left corner of the Skype window, went to "Options", selected "Video" and clicked on the "Test" button.

The webcam, much to my delight, worked right out-of-the-box!

To test the built-in microphone, in the same window (Skype Options), I selected "Sound" and clicked on "Make a Test Call". I followed the voice instructions and spoke into the built-in microphone when prompted to do so. I wait for my voice to play back.

Much to my dismay, I heard nothing. The built-in microphone did not work!!

I had this problem while installing Ubuntu 9.10 a few months ago on this same laptop. I tried a number of combinations, at one point of time, even replacing the ALSA sound architecture with OSS, but nothing happened, and I had to roll back. This was one reason I upgraded to 10.04, expecting the issue to be fixed -- not quite! I researched on a number of postings (similar to 9.10) on Ubuntu forums to see if anyone else had this problem. A number of them did, albeit on different Sony Vaio hardware (VGN-NW series but different numbers). No fix useful enough for me was uncovered.

Finally I got the fix, and am informing in this blog post.

1. Edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf (login as root for this).
2. Add a new line at the end of the file:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto 

(make sure a similar line is not present anywhere earlier in the file).
3. Save and exit.

4. Reboot the machine.

After rebooting, open Skype and log in, go to "Options" (as mentioned earlier), select "Sound", and speak into the microphone as instructed.

The built-in microphone worked on this occasion! The quality of audio recorded is even better than what I hear on Windows 7 when playing back!!

Now I no longer require the headphone-microphone set and can use the laptop on Linux the way it works on Windows 7.

The laptop has an IEEE Firewire port and an HDMI port, but I haven't used these just as yet. Will inform in a later post when I get to trying them out.

Thanks for the patient reading!