microphone driver on laptop often "doesn't"
 

about 20% of the times "Er Indoors" launches Skype on her laptop the microphone doesn't operate. The machine has been like this since new (3 years) and Dell helpline folk have been unable to suggest anything better than "un-install the driver then re-boot the machine, it will re-install the driver and every thing will be OK". This is true but it is a P.I.T.A. to do this a couple of time most weeks. It is now normal for her to call me on Skype before she starts work just to check the microphone is alive. Luckily I only work in the room next door so I can shout back if I hear her as I don't have a microphone on my system.

We have checked for a driver update for the sound card but found none.

There has to be a better solution, any ideas?

Andrew.

You sure it's not the microphone or cable?

absolutely! I am supposed to be an electronics engineer, at least that is how I pay for my life, I can be sure that it is the PC/driver getting out of wack. As Er Indoors has a tendency to fiddle with things I glued the mute switch in the mike lead to ON. It isn't that. We just don't know why it does it or what triggers it pseudo randomly.

Rans6...

Hmm... odd one alright. Especially if reinstalling the driver really does fix it every time.

Which model of Dell is it?

It has all the hallmarks of an intermittent connection - perhaps triggered by fluctuations in temperature.

The kind of thing that's almost impossible to find and fix, unfortunately. And being 3 years old, it won't be under warranty any more.

Could you install a PC card sound card that has a mic. socket?

e.g. Creative Labs Online Store (UK) | Sound Blaster | Buy Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook

Not a cheap fix, but if it avoids all the hassle - and gives decent sound, as a bonus - it might be worth it.

SD

The camera on my desktop does exactly the same. It will work for a few days, then not. Uninstall it, the machine finds it, reinstalls the drivers, and off we go again.

Skype on the laptop switches back to MM/DD/YY in the date box in the same way. Go into the control panel, change the date format from DD/MM/YY to DD/MM/YY (nothing actually "changes"), restart Skype, all is well for a few days.

Neither matters, but nor can I find why either does it.

The camera maker says "not our fault, must be MS". Skype says the same.

you could try this external solution, it's really a Creative USB add on which gives you 5.1 and 4 powered USB ports.

Toshiba Multimedia Centre Audio/USB Hub BNIB (Sealed) on eBay (end time 04-Feb-10 18:12:45 GMT)

Be quick. They're OK, I got one.

the machine is a Dell Inspiron 510M laptop. I fear that it has insufficient grunt to run the suggested Toshiba multimedia hub.

Her desktop machine is also getting a bit tired and doesn't like to run IE and Skype and Messenger and Firefox and an email browser (I forget which one she prefers) and ........ all at the same time in real time. This is why some of the tasks are moved onto the laptop, the ones that don't need keyboard input to use (she only answers Skype in a customer service desk sort of way, just one mouse click).

I have a cunning plan, I have just ordered the bits to build a 3.0 GHz Phenom II Quad core system which ought to be up to speed for a while.

Rans6....

If the only problem with the laptop is the microphone and your wife only uses the microphone for Skype, personally, I would spend a few quid on a USB Skype-compatible handset (ebay: skype handset) or headset.

She might well find this preferable as it can make a world of difference to the sound quality in both directions.