Mic only works in sound recorder and although it works there its just a bunch of static underneath the spoken word, but audible. In skype, cheese, and using "arecord test.wav" at the terminal, it's the same static/white noise with nothing I'm saying being recorded. I'm using a Gateway LT2016U (KAV60?) and not sure where to begin. Tweaking alsamixer yields no result, but if it works in one app shouldn't it work in all?
SnapOverflow
try switching from asla or pulseaudio to oss open up terminal and type gstreamer-properties and it should pull up a config box to change sound settings
Just a guess: There might be a second microphone connector on your mainboard which you need to turn off. Check the "input" page of the audio-settings.