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 exact adherence to the wishes of clients; many elements of the user interface or hardware will have to be customized. There are many thematic articles regarding setting up individual elements, and this one will talk about checking and setting up a microphone for a laptop.

Microphone settings

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

1. Connect a working external audio recording device to your laptop. If you want to use the built-in microphone (if any), then to turn it on you need to do the following:
   1. Go to 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 appropriate name of the section or program there. Select the one you are looking for from the results and open it.
   2. In the Control Panel, enable display as a list of icons, then find the “Hardware and Sound” category, and under it “Troubleshoot audio problems.” Click on this section.
   3. In the new window, click “Next” and “Microphone with support…” (the first option in the list). Apply corrections.
   4. Now the built-in microphone is turned on and can be used.
2. Wait until the drivers are installed (for an externally connected device). If they are not installed automatically, you should use the software disc or download them from the manufacturer’s official website. All drivers are supplied free of charge.
3. In the Start search, enter “Recording devices” and open the window corresponding to the microphone parameters.
4. In the “Recording” section, find the microphone you are using, 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 turned off completely, or, conversely, raised to a very high level. Installing additional utilities will expand the possibilities of using audio recording.

How to check if the microphone is working on a laptop

If you follow the instructions below, it will not be difficult to check whether the microphone is working on your 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 mini icons will be displayed. You should find the speaker icon with sound waves, right-click on it, and select “Recording devices” from the drop-down list.
3. A new window will open, consisting of several sections. The “Recording” section provides a list of connected devices that are designed to input audio information into the PC memory.This list should contain an icon of a connected microphone and a green circle with a checkmark to indicate the status that the device is working as it should.
4. If you double-click with the left button on the sound recording device icon, another window will appear where the user will be shown sliders displaying the volume level of the microphone itself and the degree of amplification of the incoming sound. By moving these controls you can change the strength of the sound.
5. A direct check of the microphone’s operation properties is carried out from the “Start” menu, the “Options” line and in the “Security” category.
6. In the window that opens after these steps, 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, switch the position of the toggle switch to the “on” state.
8. Using the side slider or mouse wheel, scroll down the page, find the “Voice recording” item and also move it to the on position.
9. Now you can close the window and go back to the Start menu. This time you should select the search function and enter “Voice recording” in the line without quotes.
10. An application of the same name will appear in the user's results, which should be selected.
11. A blue round icon on a light gray background will appear in the center of the screen. To check that the microphone is working, you need to click on this icon and say something into the audio recording device. After the sound ends, the window will change and a list of files representing recordings of microphone sounds will appear.
12. You can listen by selecting the desired recording 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 sound chips have not been installed. To check their presence, you need to follow these steps:
    1. Return to the desktop (the keyboard shortcut will not work in all applications).
    2. Hold down 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. A device manager window will pop up, where a list of various elements of the laptop architecture, as well as additional connected devices, will be provided.
    5. You need to find the “Sound and Audio Devices” category and open it by clicking on the small arrow.
    6. A list of audio 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 selecting “Update drivers” from the list. After this, the question will arise about finding the necessary software. You can force systems to automatically search for the necessary things on the Internet, you can specify the path to the disk with drivers if available, or download the software yourself from the official website, save it in the computer’s memory and specify the path again.