Help with a microphone please?

Hi folks I was wondering if maybe someone could help me please.

I recently bought a mic and have been trying to set it up in SL. I followed the tutorial on wiki but to no avail.

The headphones and mic have separate jacks. When I plug the headphones in everything is hunkeydorey, perfect sound et al. The realtek sound manager window opens and I click yes to the box and then I can hear music, etc with no problem.

However, when I plug the mic in as well, the realtek window opens, as normal, I click to say to mic and then everything goes nuts. The realtek window closes then keeps reopening constantly. The sound goes off, and I hear a whining sound. Then as many times as you click 'yes' to the mic in realtek the window closes then reopens seconds later...

If anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate hearing them. Thanks in advance.

NEC Computers
Powermate Series Computer
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual
Core Processor 3800+
2.00 Ghz, 3.50 GB of RAM

Radeon 1600 XT Graphics Card

Windows Xp Home

Once my sound manager asked me if one of my jacks was supposed to be a microphone or an output jack. So it could be you have a dual purpose jack.

When was the last time you updated your audio drivers? Sounds like you've got a borked driver to me. Bree's probably right that you've got a dual purpose jack, since that's pretty common these days, but that shouldn't cause windows to keep cycling like that. Uninstall your current drivers, reinstall new ones, and I'll bet the problem will be solved.

RealTek isn't exactly known for reliability, just so you know (or for sound quality). A lot of motherboards have RealTek soundcards integrated into them, and usually they're pretty terrible. If you've got an available PCI slot, Soundblaster X-Fi and Audigy cards are incredibly inexpensive these days (roughly $25-$135 on NewEgg, depending on what bells & whistles you want), and they work and sound great. It's well worth investing in one.

Hi there and thanks for your help.

The jack is multipurpose. Well, at least I think so because I have the option of changing it with the realtek manager. Does this make a difference?

Having plugged in the mic, Realtek keeps asking me which device I want to plug in. I click mic, the window closes then pops back open and asks, "Which device did you plug in?" I click "mic" again, it closes, reopens etc etc. Does my pc have hearing problems.

Thanks again for any help.

Ok, thanks very much I'll give that a whirl and let you know how I got on. Many thanks for the speedy responses folks.

Hi again,

Yes you were right, my realtek driver does need updating.

Sorry for the newb question but when I uninstall the old realtek driver, do I go 'Device Manager' then 'Sounds, Videos and Game Controllers' and then uninstall the 'Realtek High Definition Audio' errr speaker thingy?

Many thanks...

Yup you were right I needed an update for my realtek audio driver.

I uninstalled the old drivers and downloaded the new ones in the form of a zip file. I've opened the zip file but it just disappears? How do I get this zip file into my device manager?

Many thanks

Hi folks, good news.

I installed the new drivers and everything now is tickety-boo.

Thank you Chosen and thank you Bree for your help, thanks for helping.

Peace