[tlug] ECO mode and microphone on the Let's Note Y7

[John Fremlin <john@example.com>]

Hi TLUG,

I have a Y7c laptop from Panasonic which I have been using with Ubuntu
for about five months.  In general it works very well, but I do have two
problems. As this laptop is hard to find outside Japan but common here
and several people at TLUG are using the R series, I wonder if someone
here might be able to help?

(1) Unfortunately, the microphone audio inputs don't work (no sound on
the internal mic or through the mic jack). Apparently, it might be
possible to fix by flicking a switch in the MS Windows driver's helper
app. Is there a way to do this without installing MS Windows?

The sound driver I am using is snd-hda-intel and I tried a few options
with it to no avail.

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

(2) Panasonic has an "ECO mode" where the battery is never fully
charged. Is there a way to turn this on under Linux?
 
Thanks in advance!