Microphone not working well with Pavilion m9500y [ Edited ]

[Nightfox]

I just bought a new HP Pavilion m9500y desktop yesterday.  I've tried using a microphone to talk to friends online, but it's not working well at all.  I'm using an analog mic with a 3.5" plug (not a USB mic).  If I plug the mic into the back of the computer, people say they can here me but there is some kind of static or other noise in the background, and I also have to talk a bit loud for the mic to pick it up.  If I plug the mic into the front mic jack, people can't hear me at all.  I've tried using an audio editor to record my voice using the front jack, and all it picks up is quite a bit of background noise (it even sounded like it was picking up a faint radio station).  This computer's audio device is the onboard Realtek High Definition Audio, and the OS is Windows Vista 64-bit.  What might be the problem?

Installing a sound card might not be an option, as the motherboard has only 2 expansion slots, and they're both used - a PCI Express x1 slot used by a wireless network card (I suppose I could remove that as I don't really need it), and a PCI Express slot the video card.  I tend to avoid USB audio solutions, but if it comes down to it, I guess I'd have to buy some kind of USB mic/audio device.

Message Edited by Nightfox on 02-02-2009 04:13 PM

[RasterBlaster]

Please try the steps in this document and let us know how it goes:

Resolving Mic Problems

[Nightfox]

Thanks for the link.  I followed those steps, and it did not help.  Those were basically all that I had tried in the first place.  I hear nothing but noise when I speak into my microphone, and when I try to record my voice, the recording app just gets noise.

[Nightfox]

I found something that worked.  I bought a USB audio adapter:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812186035

It was fairly inexpensive, and the mic input on that works great.