Dell Inspiron 6400 Microphone Problem!

[mizaan]

Hello i have a dell inspiron laptop and from the day i got it it never worked the playback works fine but the Microphone dosent

does any one know about this problem?

mizaan

 

[mickey megabyte]

are you sure you've turned the recording level up?

look at this thread, and let us know if it works.

 

[mizaan]

hey mickey

i tried that and it was already at boost

mizaan

 

[fireberd]

This has to be an "old" PC as the only drivers on the Dell site are for XP and Vista 32 bit. Are you saying it has never worked since the PC was new or just it has never worked since you installed Windows 7?

As you have upgraded to Win 7 32 bit, the Dell Vista 32 bit drivers should work OK. When you upgraded to Win 7, did you install the Dell sound drivers or did you let Windows install the sound drivers? I do a lot of support on the Dell users forum (primarily desktops) and we have found that many times non-Dell sound drivers either do not work or do not work correctly.

If you don't have the Dell sound driver, suggest you install it and see if that corrects the problem.
Dell Vista 32 bit Sound Driver

 

[mizaan]

hey fireberd
i brough my pc with XP loaded on it and then upgraded RAM I tried seeing if the sound recorder would work for XP and it did'nt work and since i had a WINDOWS 7 cd i though i might as well upgrade it the sound driver on my pc was NEVER working so thats why i upgraded to 7 to see if it would change and because it was faster than XP

Your next question regarding if i let windows install sound drivers or i installed them well i did install them manually and the only one i manged to install succesfully was sigmatel audio device

so do you think i should downgrade to vista? as i have cd for all of windows

mizaan

 

[fireberd]

Windows 7 is basically "Vista improved" and uses (in most cases) the same drivers. Thus you should be OK with Win 7.

As it has never worked suggests a hardware problem rather than a software/driver problem. Unless you have an extended warranty, it's past trying to get it fixed from Dell under warranty.

There is a microphone jack, next to the headphone jack, try an external "computer" microphone and see if that works. That will help to isolate the problem to whether it's the built in microphone or some other problem. Computer mic's are cheap.

 

[mizaan]

Ok fireberd i tried using my headphones but it won't work i know my headphones work because i can play my audio out of it from my Ipod .I know the 2 ports but still wont work no matter what i do!!

oh yeah what do you mean by computer mics are cheap?

are you saying mine is broken p.s hope not

thanks

mizzeeboy

 

[fireberd]

I've seen "computer mics" for under $5 at electronics stores. That's not much to determine if the built in mic is defective. HERE is an example, although buying on line the shipping is more than the mic.

Headphones, unless you have one that also has a microphone, will not do anything for your microphone input problem. Headphones are only for listening to the PC's sound.

 

[mizaan]

so could it be my headphones how do i know if my headphones have microphones or not?

mizzeeboy

 

[mickey megabyte]

if you've got a mike on your headphones it will be obvious...