Some quick notes.
pactl list sources short Lists audio sources PipeWire/PulseAudio sees.
arecord -l Lists available capture hardware devices at the ALSA level.
aplay -l Lists available playback hardware devices at the ALSA level.
arecord -D hw:X,Y -f cd -d 5 test.wav Records 5 seconds directly from a specific ALSA device to test the mic.
aplay test.wav Plays back the test recording.
alsamixer -c N Opens ALSA mixer for a specific card to unmute/raise “Mic,” “Front Mic,” “Capture,” and “Mic Boost” sliders.
(Spacebar in alsamixer Capture view) Selects the correct capture source (Front Mic vs. Rear Mic).
systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber Restarts PipeWire and its PulseAudio compatibility layer to refresh routing.
rm -rf ~/.config/pulse ~/.config/pipewire ~/.local/state/wireplumber Deletes per-user configuration to reset audio settings.
sudo pacman -Syu alsa-utils pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber Reinstalls and updates the audio stack packages.
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf Removes or adds snd-hda-intel model overrides to reset driver pin mappings.