How can I record music on my HP Pavilion with no line in socket?

[Robmon]

I want to digitise my vinyl records by connecting my turntable to my HP Pavilion 14 inch laptop, but it appears to have no "line in" socket. Is the socket hidden somewhere? Is it possible to use a USB socket? I can't help feeling it should be possible to do this!

[banhien]

@Robmon 

It does have microphone but  it is much better to have an external sound card such as

                    https://www.aliexpress.com/popular/external-sound-card-line-in.html

You also need to convert vinyl records to digital therefore please read the following guide first

                  https://www.turntablelab.com/pages/recording-vinyl-into-your-computer-guide

Regards.

[itsmyname]

@Robmon -- is this your laptop: HP Pavilion - 14-ce0501sa Product Specifications | HP® Customer Support

On that page, under External Ports, I see: 1 headphone/microphone combo

How old is the turntable? 

Years ago, the low-levels of signal being output by such antique turntables must be connected to the "microphone" input on the computer, not to the high-level signals by a modern turntable that must connect to a "line-in" socket on the computer.

The computer amplifies low-level signals that come from the microphone-input socket, but it does not need to amplify high-level signals, such as from a cassette-deck.

[Robmon]

Thanks Banhien. This is really helpful.

[Robmon]

Thanks for responding to my question. 

You have correctly identified my computer and it does only have one external jack-plug socket. The symbol next to this is a pair of headphones, but there is no microphone symbol. I use it to connect to external speakers but if the specs say that this is also a microphone socket, then I suppose it must be.

My turntable is a fairly basic one and is almost 20 years old. It has two RCA phono sockets for left and right "line out", and a switch to turn the pre-amp on or off. If this qualifies it as "antique", do you think that connecting the two phono sockets to the phones/mic socket on my computer with a stereo jack plug would work? And should the pre-amp be on or off?

The turntable is generally connected to an amplifier that has various outputs (e.g. speakers, tape deck), but I assume from what you say that the turntable should be connected directly to the computer without using the amplifier.

Thanks again for your help!