microphone not working

[dasha1956]

I have recently purchased a web-cam with in-built microphone. My daughter
also purchased the exact same one. On her computer the mic is working fine,
although on my computer the mic does not work at all. i also purchased a
stand alone mic and tried this one, this also does not work.
Does anyone have any idea why it is not picking it up???
I have Windows XP home edition.
We compared settings with our computer and hers, there was a difference in
Speech Recognizer. I have Microsoft English Recognizer v5.1 and she has
Microsoft English (U.S) v6.1 Recognizer
Could this be the reason my mic is not working??? If so how do i upgrade to
the verson she has??

 

[Paul]

I have recently purchased a web-cam with in-built microphone. My daughter
also purchased the exact same one. On her computer the mic is working fine,
although on my computer the mic does not work at all. i also purchased a
stand alone mic and tried this one, this also does not work.
Does anyone have any idea why it is not picking it up???
I have Windows XP home edition.
We compared settings with our computer and hers, there was a difference in
Speech Recognizer. I have Microsoft English Recognizer v5.1 and she has
Microsoft English (U.S) v6.1 Recognizer
Could this be the reason my mic is not working??? If so how do i upgrade to
the verson she has??

The computer is more primitive than that. If there are multiple
microphone inputs on the computer, you may have to tell the
computer which one to use. You may have built-in sound (AC'97
or HDAudio) on the motherboard. You could have a separate
sound card (Soundblaster PCI). Each of those may have a
microphone input or two. So check to make sure the right
source is selected.

Paul

 

[dasha1956]

Hi Paul,
I've checked connections loads of times, also made sure correct sources are
chosen it definately isnt the problem.
Do you have any other ideas?
Dasha

 

[Paul]

Hi Paul,
I've checked connections loads of times, also made sure correct sources are
chosen it definately isnt the problem.
Do you have any other ideas?
Dasha

You might find the odd thread around, with some examples of
trying to get a microphone working.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=370736

As a user, you can work at the problem from two directions.
On the one hand, at the physical level, you need a driver
to interface with a piece of hardware that has been added.
In the case of a webcam, because it may be using standard
USB classes, then Windows already has a driver to make
everything magically work. Some other types of USB
devices, have a more complicated installation procedure
(covered in the product's quick start or user manual).

At the application level, you need to make sure that you
are "pointed" at the device. A program might manage something
like this itself, or it may rely on the system settings.
For example, I might have to use a control panel, to get
one of two devices selected, in a case like that.

What you cannot really visualize, is the parts of the
software that connect things together. And for that, you
need to know as much as the designers of the OS. Something
that I cannot help you with. (On optical drives, an
example is UpperFilter and LowerFilters, some registry
related stuff. I don't know if there is a pesky source
of sound troubles buried in Windows like that or not.)

So you can work from the two ends of the problem, to
correct it, but eventually you'll get to a point where
no further progress is possible (because of the lack of
readily available tools to debug it).

You might try testing with "Sound Recorder", as the
people in the above thread suggested. Sound Recorder
has a few bugs (which you may see mentioned in the
Microsoft KB), but would be one way to work on your
microphone. I used a copy of "audacity" (sourceforge.net)
just now, to test my own microphone, but that program has a
pretty grim user interface, and I don't feel it would
be too useful for debugging. In my case, I only got
things to work, when I enabled the "boost" tick box
in my mixer. I have a miserable Logitech headset I bought
for $40, and its main accomplishment, is presenting the
worst possible problems, so I have something to debug
The microphone is barely audible at the best of times.

Good luck,
Paul