Headphone/microphone troubleshooting bleg.

I’ve got one that plugs into analog jacks on the computer – one for the microphone, the other for the speaker.  The speaker jack works fine: I can hear the sounds come through, no problem. The problem is the microphone: Skype doesn’t see it, Mumble doesn’t see it, Audible doesn’t see it, Windows 8 itself doesn’t see it.  How do I convince the computer to recognize that there’s a microphone there?

11 thoughts on “Headphone/microphone troubleshooting bleg.”

  1. What you have here is a capital “F” problem in which you cannot solve. You could get a audio jack to USB adapter. Amazon has a ton for under $10.

  2. If this is the new computer you recently built, did you check to make sure that you had the mic header properly plugged in on the motherboard from the computer case? Are you using the built-in sound chip on the motherboard or an external sound card?

  3. Is there *any* microphone that is recognized by the system when plugged into that jack? If not, then I’d say there’s a problem with the jack. (Obviously, if you don’t have any other mics to test, this won’t work.)

    If the jack is working, can you get the mic to work in any other jack on another machine? If not, I’d say “dead mic”. I’m hesitant to go with “software issues” when you’ve tried that many ways to get it recognized.

    Pretty basic advice, I know, but it’s all I’ve got right now.

  4. I had a similar issue with an Ecco print server when I upgraded to 8.1. After much head banging I figured out a kludge and with the very next Win update the printer was visible. Arrggh!

    BTW- If you have a pair of desktop speakers with a headphone port…you might try that. I use the speaker headphone port cuz it’s more accessible and has a volume control knob.

  5. At some point I just gave up and use a cheap pair of usb headphone. Works well with IP phone at work, works well gaming at home. Not the greatest quality audio wise,but it gets the job done.

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