Audio recording unusably faint with 4810TZ

Putting this in new thread, hope that's OK.

Generally I'm very pleased with the 4810TZ, but recording from the built-in microphone or an external microphone produces very faint recordings (maybe 5-10% of normal volume). I'm using Sound Recorder in Windows 7 64-bit, with latest Windows / Acer driver for the Realtek sound device - have also tried the latest driver from Realtek.com.tw.

I've done all the normal tweaks - turn off all effects, set auto gain control, set input level to maximum, try boosting one mic channel more than other, setting +30 dB boost, etc.

I did get slightly higher recording levels in Skype 4.2, but still not enough to be usable (less than 20%). Even shouting into the mic doesn't get that much playback volume.

I've seen some reports that the 4810TZ's internal mic and sound recording used to work fine on Vista but broke with the Win7 upgrade.

Has anyone out there had success with recording on the 4810TZ, using any non-USB microphone, internal or external? Would really like to hear from people using any Windows version, XP/Vista or 7, just to see if it's possible or a hardware issue.

This is for a client who needs reasonable quality speech recording for her work with children using this laptop, so any help would be really appreciated!

 

How about updating the realtek audio drivers?
If you are using the ones from Acer you need to source the latest version elsewhere.

Either <cite> www.station-drivers.com where new drivers are listed daily for free download or get it from realtek's website itself.</cite>

 

Thanks for the pointer to station-drivers.com - I did already update from the Realtek site ( realtek.com.tw) with the latest version (2.47, released 9th April), but will see if there's anything better on that site. I read somewhere that there are no drivers that fix this, but you never know...

There must be lots of Skype users with the Aspire Timeline 4810TZ - perhaps they all use USB headsets, but I'm curious to know if others have had this problem, or if it's just a hardware defect in my specific laptop.

 

Anyway I just tested it with my laptop.
I can confirm it is an issue with Windows Sound Recorder.
Either you can file bug report with M$ or use a third party recorder.
The interesting thing is other applications work fine not that I ever use sound recorder at all.

 

Thanks for testing this! What sort of recording level do you get (i.e. percentage of green in the horizontal bar in Sound Recorder), and which other applications do you use for recording?

I have had similar results with Skype, but I will also try Audacity.

 

Skype works well you just need to open the recording device and see the green bar jump to know the volume.

 

I must have a driver bug or hardware fault then - I see 40-50% of green bar in Skype but the playback recording (on the Welcome Screen test, or a test call) is almost inaudible, probably 10-20% of full volume, with the speakers turned up to max of course.

I can't face a 1 month return cycle for the laptop since everything else is working fine, so will get a USB microphone adapter - the Andrea USB adapter (AK5370) at Andrea Speech Recognition Microphones looks good and was recommended by the very helpful people at that site. It only does mic input so it won't divert sound output when it's plugged in.

For anyone else looking at speech or music recording with the 4810TZ microphone input - test it before you buy. Problems with mic input levels are not that unusual, perhaps introduced by the Win7 drivers.

Thanks again for the help, and I hope this thread helps someone else - took me many hours of tweaking/testing.