USB microphone suddenly extremely quiet, nothing seems to fix it.

So this seems to be my last resort before I get a refund for my microphone and attempt to talk on Skype with a new one(but who knows, maybe the new one will go super quiet as well). It seems like my microphone simply stops being able to pick up much of anything in terms of sound. Not even tapping the microphone creates any noise whereas usually there would be a pop-type noise that happens when you touch the actual mic part. This quietness has happened in a previous microphone I had that was attached to my headset, but it wasn't nearly this bad. At least before it just seemed like I had turned my volume down a tad, but now it's almost like it's muted(and yes, I've made sure that it isn't muted lol.)

Basically what has happened is I will be playing any sort of game like Team Fortress 2 or World of Warcraft etc., and then my microphone will go nearly silent and I'll have to put my mouth literallly on the mic itself(it's a Blue Snowball in case you were wondering) in order to get any sort of sound. Even then, it's incredibly quiet compared to its ability to pick up voices from across the room before this problem started occurring. Last time this lasted for two and a half days before my microphone randomly decided to get loud again mid-conversation and things went back to normal for a bit.

I've done basically everything in the book. I've reinstalled drivers, messed with the Realtek HD Audio Manager that people seem to say causes a lot of problems like this, reinstalled that, plugged my mic into every USB port on my computer, adjusted every and any volume control, recorded myself in Audacity to make sure it wasn't just Skype, a whole bunch of stuff including every attempt at a fix that I've found searching these forums.

Throughout this whole journey I've noticed a couple of things, though. Where people say there should be a microphone boost(dbs) I have only a volume setting. I've also noticed that the microphone volume decrease happens mostly when I am playing Team Fortress 2. I don't know if that's related or could help in any way, but I figure I should provide as much information as I can.

Hi Luke5794, Did u ever find an answer to this? I have the same exact issue! I'm wondering if u didn't (and i've looked everywhere for this mic fix and can't find it) did u get a mic that was compatible for your system and if so what was it? I'm running an optiplex745 right now with windows7.