m1330 mic array = dead - normal?

Hey guys,

Recently received my m1330 (delay seen in sig). I have to say I'm quite happy with it. I have a "very slight" bump on the keyboard - nothing to worry about, only noticed because of complaints on this forum. I had a small CPU whine (bluetooth settings adjustment fixed issue), and finally my array mic doesn't work.

My problem is that my mic doesn't work full stop. I tried a variety of drivers (rollback to inspiron) along with the recently released driver. Yet my mic just does not work. I wanted to ask is this normal - from what I can see most people are getting a least something out of their mic?

I'm not sure if I can be bothered to replace as I never use my webcam @ home as it is. I would also be scared of getting worse CPU whine. Has anyone worked out the source of the problem yet? Are these mic just rubbish or is it software / vista based?

Thanks.

 

Of course it's not normal... . When you say it doesn't work, are you saying that it doesn't work with your favorite SW, or with any SW (such as the Dell-supplied Webcam SW)?

I had headphones on when I was testing the Webcam (via Dell's SW) and I couldn't hear my own voice what so ever. Then I actually recorded a test video clip and my voice was loud enough when I played the clip back. There was quite a bit of background noise (maybe my apt., maybe crosstalk within the Notebook, dunno) but it certainly worked, and I even noted the stereo capability of the mic array.

 

You could try downloading Audacity, a free recorder, setting the input to Mic and playing with the settings to establish whether or not the array is picking up any audio at all.

By talking closer to and furthur away from the mics above the screen you should be able to establish whether they are a) working and b) at what range.

Ideally, their range should be such that sitting at a normal distance with the notebook infront of you would pick up your voice, this may not be the case, and you may have to make adjustments to the device.

The Device Manager itself should tell you if your mics have hardware issues. Since you report changing drivers, I'm going to assume you would have spotted any flagged conflicts or errors. I'd also advise you only use the latest drivers for your actual models hardware too, otherwise you run the risk of genuinely f'ing up your gear.

 

Or you could just click the Vista Orb and type "Speech Recognition" in the search bar.
Try saying things like "Start Listening", "Start Internet Explorer", Minimize that", "Close that", etc.

 

Audacity will visually display the levels at which the mic pick-up is operating though, which would be more useful for troubleshooting to what end the hardware is functioning.

 

Windows Sound Recorder will display mic levels, as will the Dell video recorder application.

I have posted before about low recording levels from the array mic (now improved) but even at the worst I always got at least a weak twitch of the level meter on Sound Recorder. If you can't get anything at all, you have a bad mic and Dell will replace it under warranty.