Microphone quit working

[Mystery]

My microphone used to work and now it doesn't. I have been through all of the help/trouble shooters. I'm using windows XP home. Here is the bulk of the problem.

In the volume control panel>microphone
the balance meter is greyed out (also greyed out for stereo wide)
The volume bar is in working order, and neither are muted.


I did a voice recognition test also. With the mic set at max-it only went up 1 tiny notch- meaning you had to have supersonic hearing to hear it.

Any idea what the problem could be- or how to fix it.

[curtybob]

this may sound dumb, but eliminate the physical causes first. check your mic wire, including the plug for bad spots. a sharp kink is all it takes to break the fragile center conductor. check that the plug is inserted fully. also check, especially if you have kids, that there is nothing in the grille/ mic holes. my 1 1/2 yr old likes to drool, and i have to clean it twice a week. the balance should be greyed out, it is not a stereo device. also, go into your advanced microphone volume controls, and check to see if the +20 db boost is ticked.

[Mystery]

Everything is in tip top shape and the box is checked. It just stopped working one day- but the mic is in perfect shape. The voice recognition test showed that it was allowing a tiny bit to get through-but you could barely hear it.

[curtybob]

do you have a spare mic, or someone that would let you borrow one?

[Mystery]

I don't have a spare, or anyone to borrow from. I did try plugging in a speaker and headphones- but still no sound....

[curtybob]

are you having any problems with the rest of your sounds like music or movie audio? what kind of sound card do you have? if you have more than one sound mixer, such as soundblaster's mixer that runs along with windows own sound controls, make sure that both have close to the same settings as far as your microphone is concerned.

[Mystery]

I am not having any other problems with sounds. Just the Mic won't work. I think my sound card is Soundmax Digittal Audio.

if you have more than one sound mixer, such as soundblaster's mixer that runs along with windows own sound controls, make sure that both have close to the same settings as far as your microphone is concerned.

I'm clueless here.

[curtybob]

soundmax makes onboard (intgrated with the motherboard) sound chips. they seem pretty proud of their products!! but my last suggestion was only if you had a soundblaster or similar soundcard. seems like i am strapped here. anyone else?

[Natty]

Hi all,

I just wanted to say that I have this exact problem, it's with my C-Media A97 and it's driving me insane. All the other sound settings are fine, all the volume control settings are ok and the mic balance and advanced settings are also greyed out in the software that came with the motherboard (on board sound chip).

I have bought a new mic in case that was the issue but to no avail.

I will let you know if I ever work it out!!!

Natty

[ScRi_P_iMpIn]

if you are hearing sound that is not distorted but muffled then i would check wave settings and any other sliders in your sound properties that you could enable or raise or lower the settings try fooling around with different combo's like 3d depth wave input aux or things of that nature could be a nuber of things the best thing to do would be determine if it is hardware software or user error hope you fix it good luck!

[Natty]

All the sound on my computer is perfect apart from the microphone having the balance and advanced settings greyed out and only picking up sound very quietly. I have now fiddled with more settings than I care to mention!!!

I am now going back a driver version to see if it's that but I suspect it's windows overriding something somewhere, thanks for the advice though!