What to do if the microphone does not work in Windows 10
Miscellaneous / / April 03, 2023
Six proven ways to solve the problem.
1. Check connectors
Obvious advice, which nevertheless cannot be ignored. If you have a wired microphone or headset, it is possible that someone or you yourself accidentally pulled the plug out of the connector. For example, while cleaning.
Make sure the connector is fully inserted and into the correct socket. It is usually marked with a microphone icon and is pink in color.
2. Adjust signal level
In the case when the microphone works, but you can hear very poorly, it makes sense to check the signal level and its gain. If the corresponding sliders are turned to the minimum, then sound and may be absent altogether.
Right-click on the speaker icon in the system tray and select "Sounds".
On the Recording tab, highlight the active device and click Properties.
Make sure the Microphone slider is at the far right and Microphone Gain is in the middle at +20 dB. If necessary, the last value can be added.
3. Check microphone access
The voice device may be blocked by privacy settings after an update or in some other situation. In this case, the application will report that the microphone is not detected or that it cannot be accessed. To correct it, it is enough to issue the appropriate permissions.
From the Start menu, click on the gear to open Settings.
Go to the "Privacy" section.
Select "Microphone" in the side menu and turn on the "Allow applications to access the microphone" toggle switch.
Activate the switches for the desired programs, as well as the toggle switch "Allow desktop applications to access the microphone."
4. Make sure the correct microphone is selected
Often you may not be heard simply because the wrong microphone is selected as the recording device. You can check and fix it as follows.
Right-click on the volume icon and select "Sounds".
Switch to the "Recording" tab and select the desired microphone. If it is not displayed in the list of devices, right-click and check the boxes "Show disconnected devices", "Show disconnected devices".
Here you can also disable the exclusive mode of using the microphone by opening its properties and deactivating the corresponding items on the Advanced tab.
5. Set up the microphone in the app
Sometimes a device may be recognized in the system, but not work in a particular program. For example, when a default microphone is not defined or another one is selected instead. In this case, you need to fix it in the application settings.
Open the settings in the program that is having problems, and in the "Sound" or "Audio" section, assign your microphone as the input device.
6. Reinstall the microphone driver
This method is suitable when the sound device does not work immediately after Windows installation or after a system update. Also, this option can be resorted to as a last resort if none of the above helped.
Launch "Device Manager" by right-clicking on the "Start" menu and selecting a program from the list.
Find the "Audio inputs and outputs" section, right-click on the microphone and click "Remove device".
From the Action menu, choose Update Hardware Configuration, wait for Windows to detect the new device, and install the driver for him.
If that doesn't help, try uninstalling your sound card driver. Find it in the "Sound and game controllers" section and right-click select "Remove device" from the context menu.
Go to Action Menu → Update Hardware Configuration and wait while Windows installs the new device driver.
If the microphone is detected with an error or the automatically installed driver did not help, try installing the original driver manually. To do this, download it from the website of the motherboard or laptop manufacturer and install it following the wizard's prompts.
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