Would you please help me to get my computer microphone working?

Asked by MissAnthrope (21511

) January 4th, 2011

My computer is kind of old, it’s a Dell Inspiron E1705, Media Center Edition blahdy-blah. I have a microphone jack on the side and I finally realized it would be handy to have one, so I bought a mic. I have never used this function on my computer, so I’m not 100% sure that the mic stuff is working, hardware-wise.

I plug in the mic, and I get a pop-up window saying ‘Audio System Event’ and it asks me to select Microphone, Line In, or Open SigmaTel Audio Control Panel. So, at the very least, the jack seems to recognize something is being plugged in.

My recording software is Andrea VoiceCenter. No matter what I do with my settings, it tells me no sound is detected from the mic.

I have tried adjusting settings in Recording Control (in XP) and also through Surround Mixer (audio card software). Neither works.

Please help me!

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4 Answers

I’m not entirely sure what I did, but I got it working.

MissAnthrope (21511

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That seems to be what happens to me whenever I have mic problems. They just fix themselves in the course of my fiddling around.

Seelix (14952

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Haha.. yeah.. I mean, I’m pretty good with tech stuff, and as far as I could tell, things were set. I have a USB audio/video capture dongle with related drivers and I think that was screwing things up. I’m just not too sure what setting it was that helped. I guess I’ll figure it out again.. I’m sure I’m going to have to do more fiddling when I want to use the a/v capture and I have to switch settings back. :P

MissAnthrope (21511

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depending on the Operating system it varies, but if it is Windows it is close to the same place.
Start, Control Panel, Sounds and Devices, Audio tab
There should be a device listed for the sound recording. If not, go to Dell support web site, enter your service tag and find a driver to download for the Operating System you are running.
If all that is greek, message me and i will be able to walk you through it.

blueiiznh (16703

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