designing life

Realtek Mic Problem with Skype

I have this Acer 4530 laptop comes with Realtek audio drivers.  At first when I wanted to call using Skype, the other party does not hear what i said.  I checked the build-in mic (and external mic) and tried to record using “Sound Recorder”, it worked just fine.  But when I tried again to make a skype test call, skype does not seem to detect my mic inputs.

After googling, I found out that most of the problem was because the Realtek settings.  Some of the users even suggest to buy another soundcard to replace the existing on-board Realtek soundcard.   There are a lot of problems and possible solution for Realtek problem with Skype, MSN, YM call, or Gtalk.

The one that work for me (afer trying several tips from googling) is to try to boost the volume of my mic.  It seems that the default setting from the installer is to have the mic input level very low.  Just enough to do sound recording, but not enough level for skype or other telephony applications.  So… in step by step, here is what I did.

1. Open Realtek application.  You can find it in your system tray.
2. Go to MIXER tab and find “Mic Volume”.  Click on “..” just on the right of speaker icon.
3. Check the “Microphone Boost”
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5. Accept the changes by click “OK”
6. Open “Master Volume” control.  You can find it as well in the system tray.
7. Find “Mic Volume” and increase the level.
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9. If you go to “Options > Properties”, you can select Mixed Device: “?Realtek HD Audio Input”.
10. Once you click “OK”, you will see “Mic Volume” as well.  This is the level of input.  However, with Standard Realtek on-board soundcard, you can NOT adjust the level.  That is why the color is gray-out.  This is normal.  No need to worry.  Just leave it.
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12. Lastly…. I need to re-start my computer.  I do not know why….. I did not see this tips online.  But when I tried without re-starting, Skype still does not detect my mic input.  After re-starting my computer, Skype works well with my mic (using Realtek sound card drivers).

I hope this tips can help you with your Realtek problems.  If not, try to googling for another tips with your Realtek input mic problem.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 8:09 pm and is filed under featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.