Mic input no longer works properly.

The main board of my Time computer is a First International Computer, Inc. AM39L PCB 0.x. The PCI sound card is a Genius Sound Maker Value 4.1, which shows up in Sound and Audio Devices as CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device.

I hadn't used the microphone for a long time. When I came to do so recently I found that the audio level was very low indeed. I tried removing the PCI card and using the Motherboard's Mic input but the signal level was still just as low.

I have tried two other known good microphones but they also give very low amplitude.

Any idea what the problem might be?

 

Have you checked the sound settings in Windows Control Panel? These may be overriding settings in other recording programs. If in doubt, bump the Control Panel line in/mic settings to the max and see if it helps.

If you have upgraded to a newer version of Windows, manually check the sound card mfr's web site for available driver updates and install.

Hope these tips help.

 

Thankyou gman,

Yes, I've tried all the obvious things; the audio control panel settings, downloaded drivers for the sound card and the AC97 ones, but without success.

It just doesn't make sense.