No microphone input at all on Pavilion

[Hinky]

I own an HP DM4-3050US - it's a very nice laptop and I have very few complaints with it. Great job. There are a couple of problems I'm having, one much more troubling.

I installed a brand new hard drive with a fresh copy of Windows 7 64-bit and have 32 GB of RAM as well. Fantastic combination for performance. The problem is that I am unable to have any hardware microphone recognized. I'm not a novice. I build all types of computer systems.

Device manager shows everything installed. There should be two microphones - one built in to the HP TrueVision HD webcam and one which is a headphone / microphone jack on the right side of the unit. The system specs say it's there and I have used it before. Unfortunately when I go to the control panel for Sound > Recording I get a jack that is only L R called "InsideMobileLid Analog Jack" for the IDT High Definition Codec. I don't see the microphone listed and none works.

I installed the HP software - the Cyberlink YouCam software. The video works perfectly but no sound is recorded. I've tried to reinstall the driver software but that doesn't seem to do the trick. I wonder if it's a hardware failure but it's rare that both the built in microphone and the microphone for the sound card will both fail at the same time.

Personally I would rather not do a system restore which then installs all the other bloatware in the machine and may not work on the new SSD drive that I installed as well which is superior to the mechanical hard drive in the unit that I believe is a 5400RPM drive. It should work with drivers or it just may need service. Any insights?

[UniProg]

Hi Hinky,

Take a look at this document and please let me know if it helps to resolve your issue.

Good luck!

[Hinky]

Thanks - the problem is that neither "microphone" nor "line in" appears in the "Recording" tab of the control panel. All I see is "Stereo Mix" with a picture of a sound card and "High Definition Codec." Hence it appears that Windows 7 isn't seeing any microphone input either from the HP TruVision HD webcam or the Microphone / Stereo Out jack on the right side of the HP DM4-3050US laptop. I've installed the drivers off of the HP website. Very weird.

[Hinky]

I solved the problem. Oddly enough, when doing a clean install on this machine it may disable the microphone and line in. What is unfortunate about Windows 7 is that there is no easy way to see "disabled" devices.  If you open the Recording tab and then right click inside the window, you'll see a menu that says "see disabled devices." You can then right click and enable each of them. After enabling them my MD4-3050US works beautifully. This is a fantastic laptop with a good, decent battery, nice screen, good performance and perhaps one of the best I've ever had. Thanks for the support help and glad that we've got my favorite piece of equipment working again.

[UniProg]

Thanks for following up that you had solved the issue, and provided the solution!

[Sarah_Key]

• Hi, thanks for the tips, I couldn't see that setting, either. The problem is that, if I plug in a single microphone (not a headset), it doesn't work and it's not seen in the sound card list of devices. The microphone as such needs no driver, I looked for one and no such thing exists. Is there anything that I am missing?

[GreenleafLady]

I have tried enabling my mic but it was already enabled. Windows simply isn't seeing it. 

I also tried buying a USB dongle-style sound card and it didn't solve the problem.

The mic works on my iPhone.

Argh.

PC info: 00179-60950-18437-AAOEM.

[WHind]

Perfect, thank you!

I've been repairing software and hardware on Windows macines for donkey's years and I've NEVER seen that before. A great piece of knowledge...thanks again!

p.s. thought I was just answering @Hinky (as it was their post I clicked Reply on, but noticed after I'd posted that I couldn't see anything making it clear that was whom I was replying to. Either I'm not seeing it, or this is a bit of design flaw.

[mikemm]

There probably is a microphone input, in the headphone socket - HP have decided not to provide a stereo audio input on recent Pavilion models but a headset socket instead. This uses a 4-way jack plug with a headset mono microphone channel connected to the end connector.

This means that a normal 3-way stereo plug for headphones will be ok for output, connecting to the top 3 rings of the socket, but only a 4-way plug will be long enough to touch the bottom contact. I have tried this with a very low-quality headset and it works.

Anyone like me who wants to use the computer to record stereo audio from LPs or whatever must buy an external device to get the signal digitised and into the computer. There are several devices on the market to plug into a USB 2 port, ranging from about £20 to several hundred. The very cheap ones (under £10), looking like a USB dongle with 2 sockets on the back, all seem to have stereo headphone output but only mono microphone input although this is not always obvious from the descriptions. I suspect they all use the same chip as HP are using.

[WHind]

I ended up buying a USB microphone (a Nessie). It works really well, but was a little disappointed to have to spend an appreciable amount of extra money to make my reasonably expensive laptop/notebook have a basic capability such as stereo recording. I guess I either spend more money on my next laptop or I go with a different brand to HP! Thanks for your info/thoughts.