I wanted my audio out the rear instead of the front where the expansion cards are. I purchased a dongle with the same chipset as the Framework audio expansion, the Conexant CX31993 USB audio CODEC (source: What's inside the audio expansion card? - #15 by nrp ).
My microphone works with this expansion card. I updated to kernel 6.17.7 since my first post, but everything else is the same, still running NixOS unstable with pulse audio.
Is there a fix for this issue? I’m on kernel 6.18.3 and I have no microphone input from the rear 3.5mm combo audio jack. If I use a USB C dongle, the microphone works fine.
Not yet, I still use a USB dongle.
nope, still no microphone input from the back 3.5mm port on linux 6.18.5-arch1-1
I gave up trying to use it and “upgraded” my audio to a proper XLR mic and audio interface.
/shrug
@JackBlastum Regarding your issue with the front expansion card specifically – in your video i noticed you’re trying to plug the microphone with a 3 pin jack directly into what is likely a 4 pin combo jack (i only have the framework mainboard, not the full desktop with expansion cards, so i can’t verify the expansion card behavior). You may need one of these splitters to make the microphone work with the expansion card: 3.5mm jack combo splitter at DuckDuckGo (Watch out that there are different kinds of these splitters, you’ll likely want the headphone+mic splitter but there are also hp+hp or mic+mic ones.)
I can confirm that the mainboard combo jack doesn’t work for microphone even when using the splitter.
Ah, thank you! Yes, that would likely solve my issue. I have tested a headset on the expansion card and it does work, though the gain on both the mic and headphone audio seems to suffer considerably over using just the headphones or just a dedicated USB microphone. I’ve gone with the USB solution for the time being, but if I pick up a splitter in the future I’ll update the topic.
I’ve discovered this issue today when trying to use a wired headset to have better sound quality in dual channel. Anyone has a solution?
Hey Everbody,
did anybody find a solution for this problem, and does we know if it´s a Hardware or software issue? So is this only at Linux?
I did find a solution for this, but you’re probably not going to like it…..
As far as I can tell from what investigation has been done this is a linux issue where the card does nto get mapped correctly in the audio drivers causing the mic to never be detected as plugged so it never gets listented to. It’s reported to be a linux only issue, but i’ve not verified that myself since i won’t install windows just to test if that works….. I’m also not sure why a patch hasn’t made it to the kernel to fix the mapping since the issue is so old…. but maybe no one actually put in a support ticket to the framework team? (this forum is for community support, so reporting it here doesnt report it to their team)
using a USB dongle is a cheap way to get the functionality, including the framework audio expansion module which would move the plug to the front of the desktop too.
but what i ended up doing is picking up a Scarlett audio interface and using that for my mic input….. it’s a bit sledgehammer of a solution, but….. it does work.
I did submit a support ticket about it, they said they’re working on it, and that it will take a while. I’m guessing they’re waiting for a community member to make the change.
If datasheets and schematics were available I would be willing to take a deeper dive into the fix, but I don’t have any interest in a reverse engineering effort ontop of an already unfamiliar-to-me part of the Linux kernel.
Has there been any update on this? I have run into the same issue with the Framework desktop on ubuntu 26.04. No mic input detected on the 3.5mm jack. Can anyone confirm if it works with windows?
The audio chip used is the ALC283.
There is no public datasheet for the chip.
I am a linux kernel developer and could fix this problem in about 5 seconds if the datasheet was available.
Audio is actally really complex to solve.
Linux takes the approach of “one driver works on every mainboard”.
Windows takes the approach of “a new driver for each mainboard.”
Even if the same audio chip is used, it seems that every mainboard manufacturer wires them up differently, so each one needs different quirks. There are over 1000 different audio chips and pin configurations so getting them all right with new mainboards being produced every day, becomes i difficult race to keep up with.
FW have not included any details of the audio jack, how its wired up, pinout etc. in their schematics pdf.
Some audio chips are very flexible, and can reassign the pins on the jack to suit what you have plugged in. Others cannot.
For example, another mainboard manufacturer, that has published their schematics using the same ALC283 chip, on the one jack with 1 tip and 3 rings, can do (switchable software config):
With even FW saying the sound quality is not great on that analogue jack port, I would probably not even wish to use it, and go for a better quality usb audio device.
It would require me to actually have a FW desktop and FW13 to actually fix this, but it would take a few days instead of seconds because i would have to reverse engineer the hardware. I only have a FW16, that has no audio jack.
I just use a usb headset on my FW16.
Summary: no datasheet and no schematic equals broken drivers.
@James3 is correct. I am not a kernel developer, but I am familiar enough to play around and tinker. I tried a few plausible patches to get this to work, but none of them functioned as intended.
The datasheet is not available publicly. In my experience if you ask for a datasheet without an expected purchase volume of ≥10k your email doesn’t even get a reply, so I didn’t bother. Also I’m not a lawyer and I have an extremely strong dislike of signing legal documents for hobby projects.
Framework will have the datasheet, and the schematic necessary to implement this. I was hoping my support ticket (and this forum post) would have brought this to their attention to add support, but given it has been nearly a year without a patch on the kernel mailing lists this is unlikely to occur.
Framework’s approach of providing free hardware to Linux distribution maintainers is good, but it doesn’t help in situations such as this. Framework themselves need to take action to move this forward.
For people who wish to tinker.
On linux, there is a program called “alsamixer”
If you do “alsamixer -c0” or “alsamixer -c1” until you find one with lots of mixer controls. Some of the controls might be switches, that toggle between say “mic” and “line” or “hp”.
The labels to the switches might be wrong, e.g. setting it to “hp” might make the stereo mic in work.
So, just experiment with the switches, until a combination works for you.
There might also be various volume controls, so experimenting with those also helps. To experiment with mic you probably need to press the right F-key to get to the “capture” view in alsamixer.
These switches are useful to try, as a workaround, if the jack auto sense is not working.
A method to narrow it down.
If currently, plugging speakers in gives sound, but you wish to use a mic instead.
Plug the speakers in, play sound, and the see which of the alsamixer switches stop the sound. It will then be most likely those switches that are maybe switching it to mic instead.
Then try all the switches that switched off sound out, and try those settings for stereo mic in.
For mic, you might also need to experiment with bias on/off if there is a switch for it.
Is there any update on this? Will Linux distros get support for the 3.5mm mic input? Does anyone know if it works with Windows?
I just set mine up a week ago, dual-booting windows and kubuntu. My headset works as expected on windows, same issue as everybody else here for kubuntu.
ok so i took a look at the schema of FW desktop on their git. the page 1 block says there is 2 “lanes” outgoing from ALC623. the rear group which is HP1 does not seem to have mic signal line in it. HP2 which supposedly goes to a header (supposedly for front side has stereo mic L+R it seems). but the weird thing is they also display the 10 pin header layout, and the pins dont match. so now im confused again 
So if the Mic is working in Windows but not in Linux it points to an issue with the driver for the audio input missing from the kernel.
interesting, so you are plugged into rear jack?