Microphone input broken?

[Samarkand]

I've got both an external mic and a mic/earphone headset and my laptop isn't picking up speech on either but has no problem playing sounds. Is this most likely to be a hardware problem with the laptop? I'm not aware of having changed any settings - where can I check? Tx in advance for any help.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Is the mic muted? Check your audio settings by double clicking the speaker icon in the task bar, it should be in there somewhere. Might need to view the advanced settings, or see if you can add mic volume control by going into properties.

 

[Samarkand]

Yeah. I tried going into the control panel and being intuitive around the sound device section but even though I found a few bits that seemed that they might be what I wanted nothing has got it back working.

 

[Smeggle]

could be your sound drivers have got borked somehow - try re-installing...

 

[DJ Smithy]

I've got both an external mic and a mic/earphone headset and my laptop isn't picking up speech on either but has no problem playing sounds. Is this most likely to be a hardware problem with the laptop? I'm not aware of having changed any settings - where can I check? Tx in advance for any help.

Have you problems recording speech in say something like Sound recorder?
OR
are you having problems monitoring (i.e hearing your voice through the speakers?)

Go to Sound and Audio Devices in control panel,
and make sure "Place volume icon in the taskbar" is ticked.

This makes it much easier to go into volume control.

Now go into volume control click Options - Properties, and make sure all items are ticked.

next click on Recording, and make sure all these are ticked also.

The difference between both is that in playback you can mute the microphone coming over the speakers.

In recording, you select what you want to be recorded.
So make sure microphone is selected.
If you want to record whatevers playing though the speakers, select Stereo Mix, or sometimes "What u Hear".