Setting up a microphone on Windows 7

[Sausage]

Hello, my name is sausage and I have a problem.

I recently got a new PC which has windows 7 x64. It works great and runs spring like a boss but it doesn't seems to be able to work with microphones at all! Having a working microphone is very important to me so I would be grateful if you could help me out.

So far I have tried my turtle beach headset, creative fatality headset and some crappy VIA headset, in both the front and back jacks. Yes, I did make sure they were turned on and yes I did put them in the right jack (the pink one). The only sound options I seem to have are 'sound' and 'speech recognition' in control panel. In 'speech recognition' there is a button called 'set up microphone' and when I click it I get:



but I think speech recognition is just something where you use speech to control your computer and obviously it requires a working microphone.

I have tried clicking many things in the 'sound' panel. I definitely made sure the microphone was enabled and I have also confirmed that my drivers are up to date and I also know that all my microphones work properly. When I click 'properties' on the 'VIA High Definition Audio' thing (which is in the 'front mic properties') it says "This device is working properly."

Teamspeak either says "failed to open capture device" or for my fatality ones it said something like "invalid capture device was detected" but they definitely work. When I click 'test voice' in Teamspeak it just says "Error failed to open selected capture device".

[KaiserJ]

something that may be of note: windows doesn't like audio out & USB out for sound at the same time; if you have something plugged into the audio jack, and something plugged into the USB port for sound, it seems to always pick the USB port for output.

also if you try to go between the two (say... halfway thru a game) then you're out of luck, you have to restart the game

[Sausage]

My turtle beaches have a USB cable for power but the other 2 don't. I tried unplugging all my USBs and all jacks except my microphone on the basic VIA headset but still didn't work.

[Jazcash]

You should see if they work on another Windows 7 PC or if they work on a different OS altogether. If they do, then it's obviously a Windows 7 fault or compatibility issue.

[KaiserJ]

suggestion : try googling the exact model # of the headphones you're using, perhaps theres a special driver or something that you need (unlikely, but still)

[Jazcash]

suggestion : try googling the exact model # of the headphones you're using, perhaps theres a special driver or something that you need (unlikely, but still)

Well he said it doesn't work with 3 different headsets that he tried so I doubt it's that.

But I would agree that Googling is a good route to travel

[Sausage]

They work on my Windows XP PC which I had before this one, on my Xbox and on my brothers Windows XP PC. I don't have another Windows 7 PC to test them on.

All 3 of my headsets pretty much have the same problem and they all work fine for sound but not for microphone. So I doubt it would be a special driver for the headset.

I tried Google but he failed me. I'm not entirely sure what I should Google anyway, just 'microphone problem windows 7' rephrased a bunch of times is a bit too general and none of the results were helpful.

[KaiserJ]

i have at least 2 usb devices (webcam) that don't work on any windows beyond xp...

i hope for your sake its not a problem like this

[Sausage]

I noticed it says output device but no input device, is this the problem? (I haz very limited PC knowledges)

[KaiserJ]

o.O is that what comes up when you doubleclick the little speaker in your taskbar? seems strange, because it's the directX setup

[Sausage]

no I typed dxdiag in run hoping to find out what my sound card was lol

[Jazcash]

It doesn't seem to me like it's anything serious.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Have you tried turning the mic switch to "on"?
Have you tried plugging it in in both front and back jacks?
Have you tried fiddling with all the sound options such as turning all the sliders you see to max?
Have you tried making sure the mic's are pushed all the way in and that it's not a loose connection?
Have you tried making sure the mic part of the headset is pushed in nicely?
Have you tried it in safe mode?
Have you tried formatting you PC?
Have you tried Googling some more?
Have you tried running through the mic setup test with all the mics?
Have you tried making the loudest noise you can into the mics to see if it registers any kind of pickup at all?
Have you tried downloading some third party software for mics?

Tbh, if it doesn't work with all 3 of the mics you tried on your PC but has worked on other PC's/hardware then it's probably a fault with your particular machine/software. I'm using the Creative Fatality mic on Windows 7 x64 and it's working fine, mic an' all.

[Caydr]

Right click on the speaker icon, go through the playback and recording devices. Make sure everthing's kosher. Properties menus, Config menus, default devices, etc. If you've disabled some items already try re-enabling them and setting them to default since sometimes virtual devices are created for legacy software support and that sort of thing. This would be especially common in the case of a USB device, since old games/software will be looking for a PCI sound card, not a USB device.

Also if you've been a smartass and disabled or tweaked any standard Windows processes, be aware that these often have functionality you'd least suspect. For example, all kinds of obscure networking issues can be traced back to people disabling Windows Firewall by disabling the process, rather than just going into the Windows Firewall menu and telling it to deactivate.