Microphone on Hardware Model 1.2 is Unusably Noisy In Some Circomstances
#1
I should start by saying I have found a way to temporarily fix the issue on my pinephone, but hopefully this will be useful for others regardless.

I received my pinephone roughly 7 months prier to this post, and while I was enjoying and getting good use out of the device, the microphone started having random bouts of noise & static to the point that it was unusable, no matter what distro was installed. after taking the phone partially apart, I narrowed the issue down to physical pressure on the microphone mounted to the daughter board. It seems that almost anything that puts pressure on the microphone can cause or fix this issue, namely whether or not the battery is installed, charged, expanding, contracting, how tightly the three screws holding in the daughter board are tightened, whether the backplate or case is installed, etc. Even putting a piece of duct tape in between the battery and the plastic holding in the daughter board can cause the mic to be unusable.
This issue strikes me as one that could be inadvertently be the cause of many bug reports to distro & modem firmware maintainers, as I haven't seen anyone online having this sort of issue, so hopefully this post can clear this up.

The next steps for dealing with this issue are probably a small note about it in the wiki and dealing with it on a hardware level for future revisions, as I think end users would find the microphone being unusable half the time to be unacceptable for a released smartphone. I should also point out that I can only confirm this issue effects the Pine64 PinePhone (1.2) Hardware Model, so comment below if you can reproduce the issue in older revisions or the pinephone pro.
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#2
(01-04-2022, 05:36 PM)ASmartSuitedSimpleton Wrote: I should start by saying I have found a way to temporarily fix the issue on my pinephone, but hopefully this will be useful for others regardless.

I received my pinephone roughly 7 months prier to this post, and while I was enjoying and getting good use out of the device, the microphone started having random bouts of noise & static to the point that it was unusable, no matter what distro was installed. after taking the phone partially apart, I narrowed the issue down to physical pressure on the microphone mounted to the daughter board. It seems that almost anything that puts pressure on the microphone can cause or fix this issue, namely whether or not the battery is installed, charged, expanding, contracting, how tightly the three screws holding in the daughter board are tightened, whether the backplate or case is installed, etc. Even putting a piece of duct tape in between the battery and the plastic holding in the daughter board can cause the mic to be unusable.
This issue strikes me as one that could be inadvertently be the cause of many bug reports to distro & modem firmware maintainers, as I haven't seen anyone online having this sort of issue, so hopefully this post can clear this up.

The next steps for dealing with this issue are probably a small note about it in the wiki and dealing with it on a hardware level for future revisions, as I think end users would find the microphone being unusable half the time to be unacceptable for a released smartphone. I should also point out that I can only confirm this issue effects the Pine64 PinePhone (1.2) Hardware Model, so comment below if you can reproduce the issue in older revisions or the pinephone pro.

Hi,

I've got the 1.2a revision Pinphone (Postmarket OS, convergence edition). I'm not sure if I'm affected by this, but I did have complains about audio call quality, and people heard their echo even with the speaker set to very low volume (but when I lower it even further, to the point I can't really hear the person at the other end of the call, there is no echo anymore, so it seems to be a microphone / speaker issue)

You said you had found a temporary fix, what did you do ?
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#3
(01-08-2022, 03:41 PM)Narvod Wrote:
(01-04-2022, 05:36 PM)ASmartSuitedSimpleton Wrote: I should start by saying I have found a way to temporarily fix the issue on my pinephone, but hopefully this will be useful for others regardless.

I received my pinephone roughly 7 months prier to this post, and while I was enjoying and getting good use out of the device, the microphone started having random bouts of noise & static to the point that it was unusable, no matter what distro was installed. after taking the phone partially apart, I narrowed the issue down to physical pressure on the microphone mounted to the daughter board. It seems that almost anything that puts pressure on the microphone can cause or fix this issue, namely whether or not the battery is installed, charged, expanding, contracting, how tightly the three screws holding in the daughter board are tightened, whether the backplate or case is installed, etc. Even putting a piece of duct tape in between the battery and the plastic holding in the daughter board can cause the mic to be unusable.
This issue strikes me as one that could be inadvertently be the cause of many bug reports to distro & modem firmware maintainers, as I haven't seen anyone online having this sort of issue, so hopefully this post can clear this up.

The next steps for dealing with this issue are probably a small note about it in the wiki and dealing with it on a hardware level for future revisions, as I think end users would find the microphone being unusable half the time to be unacceptable for a released smartphone. I should also point out that I can only confirm this issue effects the Pine64 PinePhone (1.2) Hardware Model, so comment below if you can reproduce the issue in older revisions or the pinephone pro.

Hi,

I've got the 1.2a revision Pinphone (Postmarket OS, convergence edition). I'm not sure if I'm affected by this, but I did have complains about audio call quality, and people heard their echo even with the speaker set to very low volume (but when I lower it even further, to the point I can't really hear the person at the other end of the call, there is no echo anymore, so it seems to be a microphone / speaker issue)

You said you had found a temporary fix, what did you do ?

The only things that seems to work (occasionally) are some percussive maintenance to the bottom of the device, pinching between the screen & backplate with the microphone hole in between, or other kinds of adjustments. Even then, the microphone could start or stop working basically at random.
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#4
@ASmartSuitedSimpleton

The only "Microphone Problem" I have encountered was when I was using the 'speaker phone' function.

I found simply turning down the 'microphone volume' (settings---> sound) ... seems to have solved that problem for me, and my callers.

Cheers
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#5
(01-04-2022, 05:36 PM)ASmartSuitedSimpleton Wrote: I should start by saying I have found a way to temporarily fix the issue on my pinephone, but hopefully this will be useful for others regardless.

I received my pinephone roughly 7 months prier to this post, and while I was enjoying and getting good use out of the device, the microphone started having random bouts of noise & static to the point that it was unusable, no matter what distro was installed. after taking the phone partially apart, I narrowed the issue down to physical pressure on the microphone mounted to the daughter board. It seems that almost anything that puts pressure on the microphone can cause or fix this issue, namely whether or not the battery is installed, charged, expanding, contracting, how tightly the three screws holding in the daughter board are tightened, whether the backplate or case is installed, etc. Even putting a piece of duct tape in between the battery and the plastic holding in the daughter board can cause the mic to be unusable.
This issue strikes me as one that could be inadvertently be the cause of many bug reports to distro & modem firmware maintainers, as I haven't seen anyone online having this sort of issue, so hopefully this post can clear this up.

The next steps for dealing with this issue are probably a small note about it in the wiki and dealing with it on a hardware level for future revisions, as I think end users would find the microphone being unusable half the time to be unacceptable for a released smartphone. I should also point out that I can only confirm this issue effects the Pine64 PinePhone (1.2) Hardware Model, so comment below if you can reproduce the issue in older revisions or the pinephone pro.

I've also had issues with my mic, (bought my pinephone in 2022) usually it is dead silent... occasionally I will barely hear static if I replay recorded audio and put my ear up to the speakers. if I find a way to fix this I'll post something here
  Reply


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