How to check the microphone on a laptop

The concept of “laptop” includes many models of small computers equipped with additional application tools. The factory configuration does not always provide for an exact adherence to the wishes of customers, many elements of the user interface or hardware will have to be configured. Regarding the setting of individual elements, there are many thematic articles, and this one will talk about checking and setting up a microphone for a laptop.

Microphone setup

Most mini-computers without special firmware have the Windows 10 operating system installed, so the step-by-step microphone setup on the laptop will be described here, provided that this system is available on the computer.

1. Connect a working external sound recorder to the laptop. If you want to use the built-in microphone (if any), then to enable it, you must perform the following steps:
   1. Penetrate into the "Control Panel". This can be done by opening the "Search" section in the Start menu (in the lower left corner of the screen) and entering the corresponding section or program name there. From the results, select the desired one and open it.
   2. In the Control Panel, enable display in the form of a list of icons, after which find the category "Equipment and Sound", and under it "Troubleshoot sound recordings". Click on this section.
   3. In the new window, click "Next" and "Microphone with support ..." (the first option on the list). Apply corrections.
   4. Now the built-in microphone is turned on and you can use it.
2. Wait until the drivers are installed (for an external device). If they did not install automatically, then you should use the software disk or download them on the official website of the manufacturer. All drivers are shipped for free.
3. In the search for “Start” enter “Recording Devices” and open the window corresponding to the microphone parameters.
4. In the "Recording" section, find the microphone to be used, right-click on it and select "Enable". After that, double click on it.
5. In a new window, you can adjust the volume level and microphone gain factor, the range of which depends on the capabilities of the sound card. Sound amplification can be completely turned off, or, conversely, raised to a very high level. Installing additional utilities will expand the possibilities of using sound recording.

How to check if a microphone works on a laptop

If you follow the instructions below, it will not be difficult to check whether the microphone works on a laptop:

1. On the desktop, move the mouse cursor to the lower right part of the screen and click on the arrow pointing up.
2. A small menu will open where the thumbnails will be displayed. You should find the loudspeaker icon with sound waves, right-click on it, and select "Recording Devices" in the drop-down list.
3. A new window will open, consisting of several sections. In the "Recording" section provides a list of connected devices that are designed to enter audio information into the PC memory. This list should contain the icon of the connected microphone and a green circle with a tick as a status symbol indicating that the device is working as it should.
4. If you double-click the icon of the recording device with the left button, another window will appear, where the user will be shown sliders that display the volume level of the microphone itself and the degree of amplification of the incoming sound. By moving these controls, you can change the sound power.
5. Direct verification of the microphone operation properties is carried out from the Start menu, the Settings line and in the Security category.
6. In the window that opens after these actions, you should find the section column located on the left and find the "Microphone" category.
7. In the right part of the window at the very top, put the switch position in the "on" state.
8. Use the slider on the side or the mouse wheel to scroll down the page, find the item “Voice Recording” and also put it in the on position.
9. Now the window can be closed, and again refer to the Start menu. This time you should select the search function and enter in the line "Voice Recording" without quotes.
10. The application of the same name will appear in the user’s results, which should be selected.
11. A blue circular icon appears on the center of the screen on a light gray background. To check the operation of the microphone, click on this icon and say something to the sound recorder. After the sound has finished, the window will change and a list of files representing microphone sound recordings will appear.
12. You can listen to it by selecting the desired entry and clicking on the triangle on the right side of the screen.
13. If the recording does not appear or it occurs, but there is no sound on it, then perhaps the drivers for the audio chips have not been installed. To check their availability, you need to follow these steps:
    1. Return to the desktop (the key combination will not work in all applications).
    2. Press the "Win + R" combination to open a small console window.
    3. Write "mmc devmgmt.msc" in this line without quotes and agree with what is written.
    4. The device manager window will pop up, where a list of the most various elements of the laptop architecture, as well as additional connected devices, will be provided.
    5. You need to find the category "Sound and audio devices" and open it by clicking on the small arrow.
    6. A list of sound devices installed on the laptop will appear. Among them should be a microphone icon. If there is a triangular exclamation mark next to it, then the necessary drivers could not be installed.
    7. You can install drivers by right-clicking on the microphone icon in the same menu, and select "Update drivers" in the list. After that, the question arises about finding the necessary software. You can make the system automatically search for the necessary things on the Internet, you can specify the path to the driver disk if you have one, or download the software from the official website yourself, save it in the computer’s memory and specify the path again.