Mic array background noise

Hi all,
I'm very pleased with my M17x R2, especially as Dell offered it as a swap against my 2.5-year-old XPS M1730 (which was periodically plagued with NMI errors, freezes and BSODs, almost since the purchase - my tech support record is very, very long).

The only thing which is worse, and in fact on the border of unusable, is the built-in microphone array.

On the XPS (and most other laptops I've used over the years), the integrated mic was good enough to use with e.g. Skype. On the M17x, there's a constant hum which almost drowns my voice out. I've played with Skype's settings, as well as the settings in Win7 and the IDT Codec - nothing makes much of a difference.

In the Skype mic settings, the mic meter fluctuates between 4 and 6 bars, with no ambient noise in the room except the relatively low fan noise. My voice adds maybe 2-3 bars.

Is this a familiar problem? There doesn't seem to be much on the forum about it. It's really a pity if I need to use a dedicated headset for simple Skype sessions on such a high-end piece of equipment.

I'd be interested in sharing and comparing typical recordings in this thread, unless I can be pointed to an existing thread.

 

Take a look at your skype settings, Windows mic (recording device) settings and IDT settings. I have found with W7, sometimes the app being used can conflict with W7 when it comes to microphone settings. I ran into issues where Steam was fighting with W7 & IDT - it took a bit of tweaking to find a happy medium.

 

True. Same here. Skype is generally becoming more and more annoying lately. Not only it messes with the sound hardware, it can also disconnect you from network or just drop your calls randomly. I'd remove it entirely but have quite a bunch of free minutes remaining.

 

Thanks guys, but I tried to make it clear that I did play with all the available settings. What I didn't make clear, was that the hum is independent of Skype - I shouldn't have gone on about that particular app. (I actually find Skype to be surprisingly well behaved, both with audio and network.)

The hum is omnipresent even in simple recordings from the basic W7 Sound Recorder.

My OP was intended to whine about the M17x mic array. So are you guys saying you're happy with it? There's no background noise in your recordings? Are sound meters generally at 0 when you don't speak?

To make it more real, I've attached a zip with 3 samples, the only difference being the W7 mic boost option. I've left the IDT enhancements at their defaults (EchoStop, DSDA2). These actually sound passable, but the hum in the background gets really annoying in VOIP.

Is this how it's supposed to be? I'd really appreciate relevant feedback.

 

I have just been upgraded from my M1730 also and I always used the array mic on it for gaming and loved it but with the M17x all my friends complain about the vacuum cleaner sound coming from my mic and it gets loader as the cooling fans speed up. The sound is coming across the mic...This really sucks and I hope there is a fix for it too. Try a plug in mic and see if yours goes away like mine. I still would like to use my array mic though

 

I had the same problem. Dell replaced the whole lid assembly. The hum is better now, but not gone, and I still have to use an external mic for Skype.