One of the only complaints I had about my HP Mini 1000 netbook when I purchased it was the lack of a dedicated microphone jack. The Mini has a combined headphone/microphone jack. You can plug in a set of headphones and get sound, or plug in a mic and record, but not both at once. I like to use Skype, ooVoo, Ventrillo, and other voice applications, and this seemed like an unnecessary limitation.
After loading up Windows 7 on my netbook, I was further disappointed to find that the default driver did not detect if you plugged in a mic or headphone, it just always worked as a headphone jack. This left me with no option for recording other than to use a plantronics USB headset that I had laying around. Taking up one of two USB ports for a headset was less than ideal.
Then I read on a forum that the Mini has an internal microphone. What's this? Hidden, undocumented equipment? Sure enough, half-way between the left edge of the screen and the webcam there is a pinhole microphone. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to enable. I did see it was listed in my recording devices, but I couldn't get it to pick up sound.
After a bit of searching, I found a link to a driver for the sound chip in the Mini 1000:
I believe this is the official vista driver for the sound chip. After downloading and installing I went to the recording devices menu and sure enough, it is picking up sound! Yeah! The only quirk is that it appears the labels for the recording devices are switched. The recording device marked as External Mic is picking up sound, while the recording device marked Integrated Microphone Array is not. I just switched the default device and now I can carry on Skype video calls without any problems.
6 comments:
the latest update from windows update for the IDT audio fixes the mic problem. I just did it today.
Awesome, thanks for the tip!
Ha! I've had this problem before. But as MikeyMan2171, a Windows update fixed it (and I didn't even notice it!).
You should've seen my face when I opened up the recording devices window and saw my microphone picking up signal.
I can confirm it to work on the european versions of the (hp mini 1000) called Compaq mini 700.
Got the internal microphone to work in win 7 ultimate. Thmicanks
MikeyMan2171 Ive done the same and now works fine, thanks!
I have been suffering with this problem with my HP mini110 Tu bought in India. I will check on your suggestion right away. Thanks for posting this and helping numerous sufferers....Rajesh
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