Internal Microphone Not Working Properly - EliteBook 840 G5

[murphyc]

Hello.  My internal microphone has not been working properly for years, possibly from the day I bought the laptop in late 2019.  Since bringing it home from the store, the laptop was always connected to an external Jabra, so the microphone problem has rarely been an issue.  Lately, I've been traveling more, so it's become a more significant problem for me, now.

In short, the internal microphone doesn't capture sound.  (The internal speakers do reproduce sound, however.)  Notably, if I tap on the laptop, the internal microphone will capture that noise, but it captures nothing else, neither my voice nor loud ambient noise such as music.

I've spent hours reading web material on this, include HP-specific material.  I've tried all of the recommendations that I can find, though I'm open to trying the obvious litany of things again as clearly I might have done something wrong.  (E.g., I'm confused about the relationship between Conexant, Bang & Olufsen, RealTek, what to turn off, what to uninstall, what to remove, which drivers are right, etc.)  It would, of course, be good to simply know whether this is a KNOWN hardware problem such that I might stop wasting my time and just buy and install new hardware, if that's the fix.  In case it's relevant, I am a 30+ year IT professional, though I'm perhaps not quite as hands-on technical as I once was.

Thank you for your consideration and support.