Something is wrong with headphone's jack on new Z13

OK, I jumped on this MS store deal and got the Z133gx. Nice notebook, not a single dead/stuck pixel, but something is wrong with the included headphones - the microphone there garbles up the sound. I've tried the built-in mics, external mics, even plugged in the noise-canceling headphones into the mic jack - everything works but when I plug these stock headphones into the headphone jack - playback works but the mic doesn't (well, it does but distorts sound like there's no tomorrow). Does this mean there's a hardware issue? Because I don't see how software might cause that.

 

The microphones on the headphones are supposed to garble the sound that is its job, they are noise canceling.

 

is this a bad joke or you didn't get what I was saying? How garbled sound is gonna cancel noise? The mic on the stock headphones captures my voice and garbles it only through the headphone jack, not the mic jack, I don't know how else to say it so that you understand that it's got nothing to do with noise-cancelling.

I think you need to lay off that weed, dude

EDIT: OK, I just thought of a simple diagram



notebook --> stock headset: sound is fine
notebook <-- stock headset: sound is garbled (through the heaphone jack)

Is you head spinning yet?

 

i don't use the included headphones, noise canceling is pretty much a gimmick anyways. a plain old $15 pair of Sennheiser buds suits me just fine.

 

OMG, I don't care about noise-cancelling, it is NOT the issue here. The issue is that the headphone jack on the laptop is screwed up (apparently) because it doesn't accept the microphone signal properly, garbles it up.

 

still not following you... lol

 

repeat:
notebook --> stock headset: sound is fine
notebook <-- stock headset: sound is garbled (through the heaphone jack)

EDIT: I've uploaded two sound recordings - one from the stock headset, one from the built-in mic. I really don't see how the former provides noise canceling, more like on the contrary lol

 

Zetto, you aren't making any sense to me either. I think e14 gave you the right answer. The stock headphone's aren't meant to be used as a mic headset. While it has mics, they are intended for the NC function. Have you tried using a stand mic headset?

 

I think you guys are all on drugs or just sleepy. The noise-canceling headset that comes with the Z works just like any other headset - you can both listen and speak through it. Noise-canceling is just a side feature, not the main one. I mean - every time you connect through it - it shows up as 'noise canceling headphones' in the microphones section. Skype understands it, too, switching to it every time headset is connected.

OK, even if the microphones were dedicated to noise reduction - why the heck do they generate so much noise in the first place?

 

I use the Z noise canceling headset to chat via skype/voip, because the built-in mic and speakers are way too bad, speakers are not loud enough and builtin mic add quite a bit of static noise. The headphones give a clear sound both as headphones and as the microphone

 

Have you checked your levels? Sounds like you might be overdriving them.

Regardless, a good way to troubleshoot this would be to isolate the variables. Try another mic headset. If it happens with that, then it's something to do with your computer, possibly the jack. If it doesn't, then it's your headset.

 

Did you read the op? I have stated that I've tried other mics/headphones

 

lol zetto you are the one on drugs, disable the NC if you want to use it as a mic dude, it is treating the mic input as noise. the NC feature takes a signal and flips it upside down, creating an antiphase, it then sends it through a low pass filter and the LPF is what is making the input sound garbled.

 

I wish Anyways, it was disabled from the start and still garbles

 

I didn't have to disable anything, it worked fine out of the box - on TWO Z122gxs

 

Make sure you have new/correct sound card drivers.

If its not a software problem then its a hardware one that you cant fix and will have to RMA.

Be sure to look over all you microphone properties in the control panel and experiment with levels and other options to see if something is messing it up.

Be sure that you are setting the headset/external micrphone as the default device. There is a good chance its not auto changing the device to default (it shouldnt usually) so you may think your using the headset but actually still using a built in micrphone on the laptop (if this model in question has one most laptops do) and those built in microphones super suck. They pick up all the noise from the laptop and dont sound good.

 

the first thing to try if you haven't already is reboot the laptop to reload all drivers. then click on the black NC icon in the system tray and disable the noise canceling from there and not from the microphone properties of the control panel where your screenshot showed, close all other open programs which might be causing a conflict and test it. if that doesn't fix it then update the bios and also update or reinstall the realtek driver. if it is still broken after that then the laptop is possibly defective. -- One last thing though is to make sure you are recording the input directly and not from the DSP of the soundcard where it has mixed the system sounds plus microphone input, doing that would create a feedback loop and with the NC on top of it would sound real nasty.

 

Try lowering the microphone volume to like 10% of the max.

I had to do that to get rid of similar problems with the built-in mic on my Z122 in Windows XP.

 

Wait, are you trying to use the mic via the headphone output? Because theres a separate 1/8" TS input for a microphone?

 

Ok I think this proves the Z thinks that the OP is emitting noise and thus handles the input accordingly Wait I think there's something wrong with the logic there.... Hold on while I run away...

 

The mics in the noise cancelling headphones is supposed to produce garbled sound -- it's not mean for playback, but for removing from the sound you play, to produce a result with less noise.

Or, to say it another way:

Your ears pick up the sum of what the headset outputs and ambient noise.

But with a headset with active noise reduction, you have:

The mic in the headset picks up the ambient noise.
The drivers run a low-pass filter on that sound, and phase shifts it.
The phase-shifted noise is then added to the output (the sound you play).

The result, when combined with the ambient noise, sounds clearer.
SOUND + AMBIENT_NOISE + ^AMBIENT_NOISE = SOUND

To record sound, either use the microphones in the laptop itself, or plug in a separate mic in the mic port.
Do not use the noise cancelling headphone mics for recording sound, unless you really want to capture phase-shifted low-pass-filtered sound.
These mics show up as mics because that's what they are, but they are special-purpose mics and not useful for general sound capture.

 

That's simply incorrect. I used two different sets of the stock noise-canceling headsets on two different Z122gxs, both worked just fine as mic. And yes, I know how to turn off built-in mic, I've disabled it completely because it produced too much background noise, so the sound definitely went in through the headphone mic, which sounded much clearer. I've already said as much earlier

In other words - noise canceling never interfered with my using the headphones as mic, period.

 

If you go msconfig > startup, is your 'noise canceling program' running? I'm wondering if that matters...

 

yeah, it's running

 

Everything works correctly, but I did track down the issue. Apparently, the stock NC headset does not like the default format (advanced settings) set to anything 24bit, works fine at 16bit. Builtin mic, on other hand, is fine recording at any level and any default sound format. Go figure.

Could someone else confirm that for me? Meaning, test the Z1x stock headphones mic with its properties set to 24bit default format producing garbled sound vs 16bit with clear sound

 

24bit is high end, 16bit is much more standard. I wouldn't worry about that.

 

I'm not worried about that, I just want to confirm that it's normal behavior to all Zs rather than just mine

 

That's just weird. Why would an analog device, the mic, be effected by how often it gets sampled?

 

Considering the noise cancelling function, it's not inconceivable that the mic/headphone port has it's own DAC and ADC that can't handle 24 bit properly.

 

Well, either the onboard DAC/ADC samples with 24 bits or it doesn't. This doesn't sound like a hardware issue at all.

 

^really? Again we could be dealing with multiple dac's and it could easily be a firmware/driver issue causing the headphone dac's to not respond correctly.

None of this conjecture matters, the problem is solved (but strange).

 

Lol, and no one tried to check if it does the same on their Zs?