Need help with microphone on Aspire 5810TZ

I feel dumb for asking this. My Aspire has a microphone spot a few inches from the webcam. Yet I cannot find anything under devices for a microphone. Does this laptop have a microphone? Or do I need to purchase one?

 

Microphone does't show in device manager in the same way headphones don't.
Check sound properties in Control Panel to change mic settings.

 

Again I feel dumb, what exactly am I looking for? It all says its working fine...

 

Well describe what is happening and what you expect to happen. If the problem is more complex, we'll need to know that so we can help you.


Under Control panel>sound>recording you should find the microphone. When you tap the microphone spot, the green bar next to he microphone should indicate reception. That's all there is to it. If you think that there are some other problems, try using sound recorder (just type that into start menu), check the recording and tell us if you hear anything unusual.

 

I pulled up Control panel>sound>recording and when I tap the spot nothing happens, go into device manager and it says everything is ok. I should know this stuff, I'm usually the one to help when it comes to computer issues. I also have a jack plug for microphone next to the speaker jack but this laptop has built in speakers...

 

Like downloads wrote, a microphone which connects to a sound card won't appear in the device manager and if the sound card isn't disabled, there's nothing to do in the device manager.


Under the recording tab, do you have a microphone listed (you didn't indicate that)? I hope I'm not posting too obvious things, but if you do, click on it and go to levels and see what's happening there. If the sound level is too low, try increasing it.

Also if you can get an external microphone that plugs into audio jack, try connecting it to the port and report what happens. This way we'll be able to see if the problem is with the actual microphone (which isn't very likely, but can happen) or with some of the sound card settings. Did the microphone work previously? If it didn't, the maybe you could have a driver problem too.

 

Under recording there is a microphone, but also a stereo mixer. There is a green check on the microphone, but the sound bar is moving on the stereo mixer. Don't have an external mic unfortunately.

 

OK. That helps a lot, because we now know that it's most likely a software issue somewhere. A quick fix that you may attempt is to right click on the stereo mix and set it as default recording source. The down side of this is that any sounds that are played by the computer will also be recorded.

No indication on microphone is a bit strange. When you click on the microphone, what does its description say? Specifically the jack information field? I think that it might be possible that the microphone there is only for the externally connected microphone, but I believe that it's not very probable.

Also right click on the microphone and make sure that the show disabled devices and show disconnected devices fields are selected. Let us know if any new devices appear on the list.

To me this so far looks like a driver problem. Which sound card does your computer have (what does the device manager say about the sound card)? Check if there's a new driver version available from Acer or the sound card chipset manufacturer. It might solve the issue.

 

Jack Information: LR ATAPI Internal ATAPI Jack
Show disabled and disconnected are selected
Sound Card: (using dxdiag) Um, I guess Realtek High Definition Audio?
Device Manager shows Realtek HD audio and Realtek HD Audio HDMI?

 

Okay, that's good enough for now. As we can see, that microphone is indeed the internal microphone. When you right-click on the microphone is there enable option shown? If there is, try with that.

If you haven't done so already, I suggest that you get the newest drivers from Realtek and see if they help.
Go to Realtek and click on "High definition audio codecs". On the net page click I accept and you'll get page with drivers. They have same driver package for all HD audio chips, so lack of model number is not a problem here. Download the newest driver for your operating system. Next, download the newest driver from Acer's site too, just in case you have any problems with custom hardware (if there is any) later on.

Uninstall current driver using control panel>programs and features and then install realtek's driver. Report back with results.

 

Ok, I have the executable from Realtek and a zip from Acer. If using the newer Realtek drivers doesn't work how do I put the drivers from Acer back in?

EDIT:
Ok it was a bit scary when it looked like the driver didn't install, but two restarts later the mic is working. Thanks for the help!