Known good microphone will not work with my system

[Guest]

Have tried three different known good mics with my system, and can't get any
of them to work. Running XP Home on an Emachines t3256. Came with onboard
NVIDIA sound and video, and uses the NVIDIA audio drivers and NVIDIA NVMixer
to control sound properties. I have an ATI video card installed but still
use the onboard sound. Evrything sounds great, but mics won't work. Have
already tried all the obvious things... Volume, mute off, d/l latest NVIDIA
Audio drivers... Also tried the Windows "Test Hardware" wizard under the
recording setup window. One note - Have two microphone jacks. One in front,
other in back. Have tried both, with every setting I can find- Mic 1, Mic 2,
Line in, etc. Nothing works. Can anyone help?

 

[Vanguard]

Have tried three different known good mics with my system, and can't get
any
of them to work. Running XP Home on an Emachines t3256. Came with
onboard
NVIDIA sound and video, and uses the NVIDIA audio drivers and NVIDIA
NVMixer
to control sound properties. I have an ATI video card installed but still
use the onboard sound. Evrything sounds great, but mics won't work. Have
already tried all the obvious things... Volume, mute off, d/l latest
NVIDIA
Audio drivers... Also tried the Windows "Test Hardware" wizard under the
recording setup window. One note - Have two microphone jacks. One in
front,
other in back. Have tried both, with every setting I can find- Mic 1, Mic
2,
Line in, etc. Nothing works. Can anyone help?

Some motherboards do not supply jacks for every audio input and output.
Instead they allow them to be used in preset configurations and you use
their utility program to select which. Could be the configuration you
selected doesn't include a MIC input (i.e., you need to select a different
configuration which will then connect that jack to the MIC input on the
sound chip). I don't know if this applies to your host.

Did you check if the mic input was unmuted in the sound mixer applet? The
global mute for the speaker outputs is not the same as muting the mic input.

Could be the mic jack isn't even hooked up. Have you opened the box to look
inside to see if the wires for the mic jack actually connect somewhere on
the motherboard?