Weird Internal Mic Problem

Win 7, 32bit. Acer 7250 laptop. Latest Realtek drivers installed (and re-installed). Realtek manager shows in Control Panel and opens.

My internal mic stopped working over a year ago. Didn't pay much attention since I really didn't use it for anything but Skype, and it was easy to switch for that to my smart phone.

Having some time now, I decided to 'fix' the problem. Ha! Apparently I plugged in a microphone at some time in the past, and now my system seems to be stuck on that. When I right click in sounds (and yes, show disabled is checked), there is a microphone (Realtek High Definition Audio/Default Device), but under properties it says Atapi Internal Atapi Jack. Isn't the Jack meant for a plug-in?

I also have Stereo Mix enabled, and Line In Disabled. I've enabled/disabled both and that changes nothing.

When I use Sound Pad Audio Wizard, it says that no sound is detected. When I click on advanced in the Microphone, it opens speech recognition only - and I suspect that is somehow tied to the problem, though I don't know how.

I've disabled the mic, uninstalled and reinstalled Realtek drivers - hoping the re-install would fix the problem, but it hasn't. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

fireberd said:

The "ATAPI" is probably the problem. However that was for very old audio systems, not for recent systems. The last time I saw that was in Win XP.

Refresh the sound and see if it helps, as there may be some Windows/Sound corruption. Go to the Device Manager, Sound Video and Game Controllers section and Highlight the RealTek sound device and then LEFT click "Uninstall". DO NOT uninstall the drivers. Restart the PC and when Windows starts it will detect and reinstall the sound. See if this makes any difference. (this is different than just reinstalling a driver).

Fireberd -- I've done that twice in the last few days. It does reinstall by itself once I boot up, but that hasn't helped the problem.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

fireberd said:

Is this an older Win XP PC that was upgraded to Win 7?

I believe it was - it's been awhile. However, the internal mic always worked (after the upgrade, too) and until about a year ago. I think that's when I tried a plug-in mic for some program. Never worked after that.

Thanks for your help. Is there any way to fix this?

fireberd said:

Possibly found fix for internal microphone issue i... - TOSHIBA FORUMS

Read it, tried it, didn't work. When I highlight the microphone and click on Configure, it still goes straight to/opens Speech Recognition in the Control Panel.

When I open the SoundPad program, open the Audio Wizard and talk into the built-in mic, I get the 'no sound detected' message.

fireberd said:

Do you have an external mic that you can try, to see if that works?

Just tried it - a headset with microphone and two jack plugs. Plugged them in, opened SoundPad and recorded. Worked perfectly. The sound was picked up by the mic and when I played it back it came through the laptop speakers.

Pulled out the mic jack and tried again. All it recorded was the static created by my following the Toshiba guy's suggestion to boost the gain to 30 db.

Does this tell you anything useful? :)