An online meeting becomes an ordeal when the other person misunderstands you, has to constantly ask you to repeat things or your voice seems to come from the bathtub. Sometimes the problem is with the network, but very often the cause is with your microphone settings and you can easily fix those problems.
Tip 01: Check device
It’s an open door, but still… Always check the hardware first. Did you accidentally hit the button mute on your headset and is the microphone or headset connected correctly? If you can rule out those possibilities, go to the notification area in the lower-right corner of the screen. Right click on the speaker icon and use the command Open sound settings. In Windows 10 you will immediately enter the Institutions of the part Sound. There you see Input whether you are addressing the correct input device. For example, if you are using a headset on your laptop, the system may have selected the lower quality internal microphone instead of the headset. Here you can immediately correct that misunderstanding. After you have selected the correct microphone, you can test the microphone. A bar indicates the sensitivity of the device.
Problem solver
In the setting Sound even has a button Resolving problems, which automatically searches for conflicts and resolves them on its own. You can also uninstall the built-in audio troubleshooter from the Control Panel to fetch. Click on the tool Troubleshooting and select Fix audio recording issues under the heading Hardware and Sound. The troubleshooter works automatically and at the end you can get a detailed report of the troubleshooting.
If the system always speaks to the wrong microphone, you can solve this via the Settings
Tip 02: Features
Then click on the blue link Device properties. In the next window, you can rename the microphone and increase the volume to 100 percent. It is also possible to test the sensitivity of this device. Go a little deeper into the menu and click the button Additional device features. This is where you get to the specific features of the microphone you want to use. You can rename the microphone. If you work with a headset, you can use the General change a microphone icon to a headset image. That prevents misunderstandings.
Tip 03: Input Device
In Windows 10 at the Settings / Sound find you at Related settings the part Control Panel Sound. You will also get through it in the taskbar search box Control Panel typing and then the item Sound to open. Use the tab Record. Here you will find all recording devices and you can adjust their settings. You can recognize the default input device by the green check mark and if you snap your fingers, you can see how the green bars next to the connected microphones react. In this example, this is the microphone of a webcam and a USB headset. If you notice in this panel that the system is always addressing the wrong microphone, then this is the place to fix it. Select the microphone that the system should use by default and then click the button Set as Default. If you don’t see your microphone here, right-click and check the options: View Disabled Devices and Show Not Connected. Suppose you want to disable the webcam’s microphone, then you can avoid mistakes by right-clicking on it and the function Switch off to select.
Tip 04: Set microphone
To increase the microphone volume, double click in the Control Panel Sound on the microphone in question and then open the tab Levels. If you have a quality microphone, you do not have to set it to 100 percent, 80 percent is sufficient. Some microphones also have a Boost setting in this window. The boost level is set to 0.0 dB by default. You can use the slider to go up to +40 dB. Make sure the person you are communicating with can hear you better. Please note that when you slide the slider Microphone and Microphone Boost set to maximum, the people you are talking to are likely to hear buzzing or distracting background noise. That’s why it’s better to keep the volume at 80 percent.
You can overrule the microphone levels of certain programs
Tip 05: Exclusive mode
In general, your microphone will work fine, but if the problems only occur with certain programs, such as Teams or Skype, you can overrule the microphone levels of these programs with the system’s general microphone settings. Right click in the window Sound on the microphone you want to use. Then you open the Characteristics of this microphone and go to the tab Advanced. In the normal setting, programs can adjust the microphone settings themselves. In this situation it is better to turn it off. So uncheck the two options of Exclusive mode: Allow exclusive management of this device by applications and Prioritize applications in exclusive mode. Only do this if you notice problems with the microphone within a particular program.
Permissions
Have you just updated Windows 10 and find that the system cannot find your microphone? Then try allowing apps to access the microphone again and check if that makes it work again. To do this, go to Settings via Start and open the section Privacy. In the left column click on Microphone in the group App permissions. On the right side, you can enable access to the microphone at the top. Check if at Allow apps to access your microphone the slider too On stands. Then select the apps that can access the microphone. Also turn on the switch Allow desktop apps to access your microphone on on.
Tip 06: Update driver
Outdated audio drivers can also cause your microphone to stop working properly. Finally, you have to check the drivers of the microphone. Right click on Start, so you Device Manager can open. That’s where you start with the group Audio Input and Output. Right click on the microphone and select Update driver. You can also update the sound card driver by checking the section Sound, video and game controls and then click on your sound card. You update the driver in the same way there too. When the microphone and sound card drivers have been updated, restart your PC and check the microphone volume levels.
