M17x Integrated Mic not working properly

There is probably a quick fix to this, but I'm at my wits end fooling with settings in the audio panel (which I am not honestly knowledgeable about) so I figured I'd post my dilemma on here.

My computer is interpreting my built-in microphone as "Communications Headphones (IDT High Definition Audio CODEC)". This is causing me to be unable to use my microphone or receive any audio from programs such as Skype or Steam chat, and I have absolutely no idea why.

I don't believe it's a driver issue (although I did have to re-install all my drivers last year follownig an HDD failure), but I may try re-installing my drivers just to attempt to fix the problem.

Do any of you have any idea what might be causing this? I would really appreciate a quick and concise response - my girlfriend is eager to Skype me from New York and I don't want to have to repeatedly put it off because of hardware issues.

Thanks, guys.

 

Well, I fixed it, but I'm not entirely sure it's the correct way to approach this.

I went into the control panel, disabled the headphone option, and then changed my default audio device from Microphone to Microphone Array.

 

Turns out the microphone still doesn't work in Skype. I re-installed the driver from Dell's page and the problem isn't fixed.

Also, sorry for the triple-post, but I figured the information was relevant.

 

I have a similar problem: I use a headphone with mic while gaming and it's working fine (under control panel mic is set to IDT high definition codec); if I unplug the headphone mic it changes to IDT high definition codec but the internal mic captures no sound!

 

Mine was doing that then i re enabled my camera and it fixed the problem

 

I use an external mic from the first day because the built-in one gives sound of very poor quality, unfourtunately