x200T - Internal Microphone not working (external does)

Hello all,

I seem to be having a problem with the built in microphone (dual array on the LCD bezel). It does not seem to work at the moment. I know it worked fine at one point in the past, but I may have been having issues for a long time (I rarely use the mic or webcam).

The microphone is properly installed in device manager and shows up in the sound panel as a recording device. It is not muted (current setting is volume at 14, mic boost at +36dB).

However, no matter how hard I try I can NOT get the internal microphone to register any input at all. This includes microphone setup in Windows Speech Recognition, Skype, OneNote, etc..

If I plug an external microphone (e.g. a free Logitech headset) into the 1/8" jack on the right side it works just fine. Therefore, I don't believe the Conexant soundcard is broken.

Is there any chance this is a software/driver problem, or is this definitely hardware related. If it is hardware, are there any suggestions for how I might go about fixing it (a point to the proper page of the HMM would be nice). Although I rarely use the microphone, it's still something I would like to have operational. However, I'd really rather not send my tablet into Lenovo for warranty service for such a small issue.

Any help would be much appreciated.

System details:
x200 Tablet - Type 7448CTO (285nit LED frameless, webcam, SL9400, fingerprint, bluetooth, WWAN, etc.)
Windows 7 Professional 32-Bit
Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
Driver 4.92.10.0

 

There is a good chance this is driver related.

I had a similar issue on my X200. The microphone (dependant on the driver version) either did not register any sound at all or only very low levels which would only register if I shouted directly into the mic. Tried Lenovo support, but got the usual scripted answer by a woman who I could tell immediately were not remotely knowledgeable enough to even begin to understand the causes of this mic issue. So I googled the issue instead.

Came to the conclusion that the mic capture dB settings in some of the driver versions are too low.

First time I encountered the issue:
I actually fixed the issue in a previous Conexant driver version by manually changing/increasing the dB level in one of the .inf files in the XP32 install folder (since I was using XP Pro). After this I choose to install the driver by executing setup.exe and it would then apply the settings. After that the mic would work perfectly. Unfortunately, it has been a while and I can't remember the exact lines to edit nor can I remember the exact file name, but it was probably 'TPMPHER5.INF'.

Last time I encountered the issue:
I just did a quick fresh install on the same X200 a few weeks ago and the same issue occurred after I updated some ThinkPad drivers via System Update. If I re installed the old driver from 2009 which came with the factory install the mic would work fine again.

I however got the latest Conexant software version to work by downloading directly from lenovo.com and then manually installing. For some reason I have had problems when doing an updated install (where the old driver has not been uninstalled) - so I recommend uninstalling the driver, rebooting and then manually installing the latest driver, which in your case would be:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-73721

Let me know how it goes.

 

Hello. Thanks for raising awareness on this issue. I am also interested in addressing its root cause for my x200T. Just turned on Skype today and the built-in dual-array mics would not register any sound input. The mics worked perfectly before. As of now, I believe the change may be attributed to new drivers installed via System Update (I updated couple days ago).

Please post if you were able to fix this mic issue by using one of JabbaJabba's recommended solutions above.

 

Just tried the driver you suggested. As well as the Windows 7 default "HD Audio Device" and the Conexant driver grabbed by Windows Update. Failure on all three counts. Further suggestions?