X60s got a very WEIRD built-in microphone???

Hi everybody,
I've been using my 1702-3JU X60s for nearly 3 months but today I've just found out it seems to have a built-in microphone (and an interesting one because you just can't turn it off).
Because of my job I often make VOIP calls from my laptop with a standard headset (i.e one jack to phone and one for mic) and it goes pretty normal, when I'm not using microphone I always mute it off in Volume Control. Just today I hooked it up with a Creative Vista USB webcam to make a video conference with my gf over Yahoo Messenger, also no problem. And here come the weird part, when we were chatting (ehhh...I mean typing), she made a voip call to me over yahoo messenger service and I took it (without connecting the headset) and to my surprise she heard me pretty well. Of course my first reaction was "Cool, this cheapo USB webcam is intergrated with an ADC and mic" and out of curiosity I opened Device Manager and saw nothing new. So I disconnected the webcam and still she could hear me, then I opened Volume Control and the mute box under Microphone Volume slider is still checked. So now I'm stuck with an always-on mic which I even dont know where it's located, AFAIK Lenovo never say anything about a built-in microphone and still I got one? Any work-around for this problem is very appreciated. Thank you all.

 

Not sure of any workarounds... But thats is realllly strange...

 

The only good part is the sensivity is pretty darn good, now I can get rid off the headset and using only my Koss when do voip calls. Anyway, having something without the possibility to turn it off or on always make me uncomfortable

 

you say "mute box"... Looks like you are trying to mute microphone in playback mode. Go to Volume Control -> Options -> properties. Then select "Recording" from the group "Adjust volume for". There is no mute option, but you can reduce volume to minimum.
Or, there should be a mute button in the VoIP application.

Thinkpads had microphones for long time. My R40 has one also. And Lenovo always writes that there is a microphone, but maybe not on the page where you buy it.

 

Are you on Vista or XP?

 

Well, the mic is located under the M letter on the palm rest. If you've ever took the palm rest off then you can see there's a hole under the letter, and a black mic on the mainboard.

 

I was experiencing the same thing on Lenovo X61 running Vista. The built-in mic is always on. I've disabled the Mic in Recording Devices but that has no effect; setting the microphone recording level to zero also didn't do it. Other than the annoyance of having to hear the keys click through headphones, this seems to have some serious privacy/security ramifications...

Anyway, what worked was:
Get to the Sounds dialog (right-click the Speaker icon in the sys tray and click Playback Devices). In the Playback tab (NOT the Recording tab), click Speakers (yes, Speakers), and then click Properties.

Click the Levels tab, and then, under Microphone, click the Mute button.