I disabled my default microphone, how do I enable it again.

Anonymous
2010-05-09T13:44:01+00:00

Hi,

I recently got a laptop with windows 7. I bought a Microsoft web-cam and when I was playing with Audacity, I realized that the mic in the web-cam was better than the built-in mic my laptop had. So I went to control panel/sound and I disabled the built-in microphone and left only the web-cam microphone enabled. When I went back to Audacity it showed a message that said "Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate". Did i do something wrong? How do I make my built-in mic go back to normal?

Thank you,

Laura

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-05-10T12:51:43+00:00

Hi Laura,

As you have disabled the built-in Microphone, first lets try to set the Microphone as a Default Device and enable the same.

Perform the task mentioned below to set Microphone as default device and then enable it.

  1. Go to Start and click on control Panel.
  2. Click in Sound, then a new window will open up.
  3. In the new windows click on the tab "Recording” and right click in the window and click on Show Disabled devices.
  4. Now check if the microphone is listed there and highlight the microphone and click on "Set as Default" device.
  5. Now right click on it and choose enable.

Doing this will enable the built-in Microphone.

Check if the issue persists  now.

Refer this link for additional information:

Tips for fixing common sound problems

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Tips-for-fixing-common-sound-problems

Regards,

Divya R – Microsoft Support.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-20T10:01:04+00:00

    I have the same problem but the above solution does not work with Windows 8 on my Dell Inspiron 1525. To try and correct loss of volume I disabled both microphones. Right click does not show the internal mike. I restarted and I have restored the external mike and now also have another mike shown as a digital jack which is unavailable. How do I restore the internal mike? Any help much appreciated. I did solve the volume issues.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-01-16T19:28:14+00:00

    really nice help thankss

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-01-11T00:46:33+00:00

    Thank you! This really helped me out!

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-12-17T12:56:47+00:00

    It would be nice if Microsoft provided some sore of "Hint" indicating that right click was a possibility.  It would have save me and I am guessing several people on this forum from having to read/post messages here.

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