Help with Mic?

[Ouendanation]

I need some help with my mic. My computer won't recognize it when I put it in. It doesn't give me an error message or anything. There's NOTHING. It was working a month or two ago, then it just stopped working (I didn't try using it again until now). And I DID make sure it's in the right port.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Pic of it.

[vart]

comp does not need to recognize the microphone, it has no drivers, and nothing to install...
check if the microphone input is not muted... some programs do it...

[JFonseka]

Click on your sound settings on the taskbar if you are on windows xp. I'm on vista so the controls are bit different, but you should be able to find the volume for the mic, if not, open the settings and make it display it. Make sure it's not muted.

Also make sure you plugged in the mic to the CORRECT input in your computer, you have no idea how many people plug it into the speaker port or somewhere else. This is especially true if the input is at the back, hidden away somewhere, you can't connect it to any old place.

[Ouendanation]

I guess recognize isn't the right word... It doesn't realize the mic is there at all.

[JFonseka]

If you have tried all of the above, try googling some things. Seriously though if the above instructions don't work, you have either plugged it into the wrong input or that input is damaged.

Another thing, your computer has speakers right? And it's on, and it works?

[jEssYcAt]

Also make sure you plugged in the mic to the CORRECT input in your computer, you have no idea how many people plug it into the speaker port or somewhere else. This is especially true if the input is at the back, hidden away somewhere, you can't connect it to any old place.

Many microphones have a pink color-coded plug. My actual mic that looks a bit like yours has a pink part that you are supposed to grip when you pull it out or plug it in. I got a pair of headphones with a mic attached and the plug for the mic has pink accents on the actual metal of the pin that goes into the port.

HOWEVER!!! My Creative Labs sound card has a BLACK microphone port, and a PINK port for one of the 5.1 speaker outputs (not sure if it's the center or the rear, the green port is the front speaker output).

For the longest time I just assumed pink plug went into pink port and there must have been something wrong with the mic... when I got the headphones/mic and actually looked closely at the sound card, I felt incredibly stupid and frustrated. I pulled the microphone out of the pink port and put it in the correct port and now I have a microphone again.

If you think you plugged it into the correct port and nothing else seems to work, check the ports again. Windows knows only about your microphone through the sound card, so there is really no windows setting or driver you can find/use/change to make the microphone suddenly work.

That said, I know in the past many lower end motherboards with integrated sound had only 3 ports for the sound card, and two of the 3 ports did double duty. If you set the system to plain stereo speakers, one of the ports was output, one was line in and one was microphone in (or one was both of those and the 3rd was something else, I can't remember off the top of my head). If you set the system to 4.1 or 5.1 (again, can't remember exactly) then one port is front, one port is rear and one port is center or sub - no microphone input. It wasn't a windows setting, it was a soundcard setting.

I have been out of the loop with regard to hardware for about 5 years now (hmm, my oldest son is 5 years old, nifty coincidence) so I don't know if this situation may still be true for motherboards and integrated audio, or perhaps you have an older motherboard, don't know because you didn't give us that info. But it is definitely more for you to look into.

As far as the computer not "realizing" or "recognizing" that the microphone is even there (or whatever term you want to use), it won't. Your sound card might possibly detect the presence of a mic, but I doubt that. Again, not up on current technology, but no sound card I've ever played with ever did that. Even if it does, you would probably have to run a specific program that comes with your soundcard for it to be paying attention to that.

Hope this helps.

[Ouendanation]

If you have tried all of the above, try googling some things. Seriously though if the above instructions don't work, you have either plugged it into the wrong input or that input is damaged.

Another thing, your computer has speakers right? And it's on, and it works?

built in speakers, yeah. I know for sure that it's in the right port; I checked several times. Is there any test or anything I can run to make sure it's actually damaged?