Microphone Volume is Very Low

[Renegade23216]

I use Ubuntu and Windows XP as dual boot. In Ubuntu, my microphone works fine. In Windows XP, it *used* to work fine until I was about to play Battlefield a few days ago. I realized that suddenly, my microphone volume is VERY VERY low. The people in Ventrilo and Teamspeak say that it sounds like I'm 3 miles away, and they can just BARELY hear me.

My Microphone boost is turned on. All settings seem correct. I've even re-installed the driver from Asus Website. It's an Asus P5B board with onboard sound (SoundMAX HD Audio).

What could possibly be wrong? All settings are fine as far as I can tell.

It seems like one of those strange issues, that no matter what you do you can't get it to work -- but if you end up formatting and re-installing Windows, it would probably work fine. I just DO NOT want to go through that!

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

I think Windows XP automatically sets the microphone input level. I'm not sure you can manually change it.

 

[QuixoticOne]

There are usually TWO mixers -- one being the default windows XP mixer/volume control. If you open the Properties tab there will be an option to change options for RECORDING instead of the default PLAYBACK. Look at the MIC volume level slider and the master recording volume slider. And of course MIC boost too.

The OTHER mixer s/w is usually bundled with a driver for your sound card or motherboard or something "brand name" like that. Unfortunately sometimes these mixer applications don't play nicely with each other and even though all volume/boost settings look fine in one mixer, the other one's settings could be overriding. Check both.

I'm assuming you haven't plugged your mic into your LINE IN by accident or set
the MUTE / volume level controls in a bad way.