Microphone, and now sound not working

Two days ago, the microphone in my sister's laptop stopped working (she uses Skype a lot). She could hear others talk but they could not hear her.

Her laptop is not quite two years old and she's running Windows XP (It's a 14" HP Pavillion laptop; 2000 series if I recall correctly).

I checked every setting I know of and nothing was muted. I did a system restore after noting there was an automoatic Windows update the day her microphone stopped working. The System Restore did nothing. I did not update or remove and reinstall the driver.

She uses Skype without a headset and mic, using instead the ones built into the notebook.

I then tried my husband's headset, plugged it in and made a test Skype call. Both the microphone and sound through the headset worked fine. I unplugged the headset and now she gets no sound at all, in addition to the original problem: the mic not working.

So now it's no sound, no use of the microphone.

Any thoughts about the problem, whether it's software or hardware? Is there anything I should try before recommending she bring it in for repair?

Thank you.

 

never heard of mic/headset having drivers...however you can check to make sure in the service (Skype) which I/O devices are set to default

 

I thought the sound system had drivers, but I'm not a techie so that's why I asked here.

The sound doesn't work for anything now, including Skype: not a video, not a iTunes song, nothing. So the problem is system-wide, just not when using Skype.

Any additional thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Anybody? Did I ask this question in the wrong forum?

 

....from your first post...i thought it was just the mic/headset having problems...yes your sound system has drivers...have you opened up your sound card profile either in the task bar by double clicking the sound icon...or going through control panel sounds and audio devices...sometimes...don't ask me why...mute sets itself...check these values...also look at the sliders and see where your volume sound is set at...post back if these are O.K....