Microphone volume too low

[01steven]

Just installed the release candidate of Windows 7.
Was previously running Vista.
I use Skype a lot, and my microphone volume level is much lower now than it ever was.
People are telling me they can hardly hear me when I call them.
I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop- the mic is built-in.
I've looked at all the obvious settings both within Skype and also within Windows, but not managed to fix this yet.
Any suggestions?

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi Steven, welcome to the forums.

I have had the same issue with my laptop (e-system). You have to go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound, open the 'Sound' option. Click the 'Recording' tab and you may see 2 microphone devices, I had to 'disable' (right-click) the first device while changing the properties of the second one (volume levels + boost to +20)

Hope this helps




Jeff

 

[01steven]

Hi Steven, welcome to the forums.

I have had the same issue with my laptop (e-system). You have to go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound, open the 'Sound' option. Click the 'Recording' tab and you may see 2 microphone devices, I had to 'disable' (right-click) the first device while changing the properties of the second one (volume levels + boost to +20)

Hope this helps




Jeff

Hi
Sorry I should have mentioned I had already tried this!
One is disabled and the other is at 100% volume.
Not sure what's going on with 2 microphone devices showing though. Can't see the difference between the 2 either. Wonder if there'd be any results by disabling the other one and altering the settings on the currently disabled one?

 

[simonfilth]

i think he was talking about something different. disable all the other ones, right click the one you want and click properties. go to the 'levels' tab and then you can boost your microphone from +40dB to +60dB

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi
Sorry I should have mentioned I had already tried this!
One is disabled and the other is at 100% volume.
Not sure what's going on with 2 microphone devices showing though. Can't see the difference between the 2 either. Wonder if there'd be any results by disabling the other one and altering the settings on the currently disabled one?

Quite possible, it's worth a try

 

[01steven]

OK here's the latest.
There are 2 microphones showing in the system.
They were both called 'Microphone' so I've renamed them as 'Microphone1' and 'Microphone2' to distinguish between them.
Microphone 2 has the option in properties>levels for me to add the +20DB
But this microphone when selected as the default in the system, won't work in Skype. It just tells me to plug a microphone in.
properties>levels for 'Microphone1' doesn't give me the option to boost the decibels. It's simply not there. It does work in Skype, but just far too faint.

 

[simonfilth]

maybe simply get a new mic. some might be s h i tty. they're not that expensive, get one on ebay

 

[01steven]

maybe simply get a new mic. some might be s h i tty. they're not that expensive, get one on ebay

nothing wrong with the mic
It is the built-in mic with my Dell laptop.
It worked absolutely fine on Vista

 

[ribbit]

microphone prblems

Fresh build win 7 x64 RC asus M3N78-VM 2 gig ram amd atholonX64 dual core 6000+ on board sound "VIA" options suck but it will play speakers & mic.
only problem is on paradise chat on line,you can talk once but thats it APP. crash.admin at PCO seem to have narrowed it down to systems like thiers that dont run 32 bit or higher.Same problem with vista love the OSbut sigh might have to wait until the rest of the crowd catches up hopefully soon
P.S Other than that everything is well.

 

[darkassain]

im wondering if a sound driver install would make this go away
look at both and look at which one has this as the Jack info...

that is your internal mic
you not being able to boost your mic (is this a stereo or mono mic?) should be more than enough for me to think that its a driver problem...
also have that mic as the default communication device...

 

[01steven]

im wondering if a sound driver install would make this go away
look at both and look at which one has this as the Jack info...
View attachment 18742
that is your internal mic
you not being able to boost your mic (is this a stereo or mono mic?) should be more than enough for me to think that its a driver problem...
also have that mic as the default communication device...

I have attached screenshots of the properties of both mics (not sure if the images will automatically load in the message or not- apologies if they don't, I'm not that familiar with this forum).

Mic 1 is described as a digital jack, mic 2 is described as front panel 3.5mm jack.
I assume from that that mic 1 is my internal jack (I have plugged external mics into the 3.5mm jack at the front of my laptop before, which must be mic 2).
If this is the case, how do I go about testing the drivers?
I have been in device manager and under sound, video and game controllers there are 2 options- both called 'high definition audio device' but I don't think either of these are my internal mic. It seems there's an automatic driver software update which I ran anyhow on both of these and it says the drivers are up to date.
I've attached a screenshot of my device manager if this is of any use.
Thanks

 

[01steven]

I downloaded new drivers from the Dell website.
Now my mic settings look like this.

Have just been testing the mic and it is working on normal volume but then pretty much fades to zero for a few seconds, before coming back to normal.

Not sure if this is the same issue as before, presumably still a Windows 7 bug?

By the way, will users of the release candidate get updates to Windows 7, or do all the updates appear in the paid-for version?

 

[darkassain]

I downloaded new drivers from the Dell website.
Now my mic settings look like this.

Have just been testing the mic and it is working on normal volume but then pretty much fades to zero for a few seconds, before coming back to normal.

Not sure if this is the same issue as before, presumably still a Windows 7 bug?

By the way, will users of the release candidate get updates to Windows 7, or do all the updates appear in the paid-for version?

have you boosted the mic at all? (get to the properties of the array mic click on levels and then slide the mic boost to +20...
also there might be settings in the enhancements page which you can try that might help you...

by updates do you mean standard 2nd tuesday of month kind of patches?
most likely no since its a different OS build (I mean the RTM)
im certain that after the GA date (october 22 i believe) the RC string will be deleted from MS so no more updates for the RC (although it can happen sonner than that) ..

 

[Dwarf]

Have you checked the settings on this tab?

 

[tadas]

Have you tried skype>tools>options>audio settings and untick automaticaly adjust microphone settings?

 

[01steven]

have you boosted the mic at all? (get to the properties of the array mic click on levels and then slide the mic boost to +20...

I don't have the mic boost option on the levels tab

 

[01steven]

Have you checked the settings on this tab?
View attachment 18977

mmm...tried this and still no joy unfortunately.
Mic is working- I don't think it's too low anymore- it's more about background noise/clarity and the whole fading in and out issue

 

[01steven]

Any other ideas anybody?!

 

[Orbital Shark]

Sorry Steven i'm frash out of ideas

As i said before I had the same issue with Skype & solved it by just disabling 1 of the microphones

Hopefully someone can help, you may just need to give them a bit of time to read the post




Jeff

 

[stormy13]

you not being able to boost your mic (is this a stereo or mono mic?) should be more than enough for me to think that its a driver problem.

That and the mic boost option is on the Custom tab (or at least it alwys has been for me),

which is missing from all the screen shots that Steven has posted.

Just had a look at what is available for an audio driver for his laptop, and Dell has a 32 bit Vista driver for it (BTW you running 32 0r 64 bit?). That being said time for some of the Sigmatel experts to weigh in here.