Where to select non-standard devices?

I got an old XP labtop, running audacity 1.3.14. Everything’s good soundwise (just the pc got a bad battery and monitor and other signs of wear…). So I got a bigger and faster one (Toshiba Satellite) with Windows 7 a while ago - and I got crazy from the long latency between line in and headphones (posted that before). Recording’s just impossible.
Now I found something interesting: When checking the sound card settings (via help in audacity), I get a listing (on both computers, eventhough they have different onboard sound cards) which contain all available devices IN DUPLO. Once with lower device ID numbers, with values of high and low latency of 0.4 and 0.2 seconds respectively and once with higher device ID numbers, with latencies of 0.0 seconds!!! Now here’s the strange thing:
On the XP labtop, where recording goes just fine, the standard setting is displayed to be the low ID number devices, BUT THE SELECTED ONES are displayed to be the higher ID number ones (without latency). Now guess what: On the Windows 7 labtop the standards are again the low ID numbers - and the selected ones there are just the same!
On neither of the two computers I can find any way to specifically select either higher or lower ID devices. They just show ONE sort per input and ONE sort per output device. So, finally here comes my question: Does anybody know how to select and make the computer use the higher ID number devices (with apparently NO latency)?! Need to go via the registry? But where there? Which values to patch? Or what’s the catch here? I’m really so curious!
Thanks for any help!
Pat

It probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. “0” probably just means “no value available”.
If you want to investigate further, please go to “Help menu > Audio Device Info” and copy and paste the contents into your reply, then in the device toolbar, copy (in full) the names of each recording input and playback output device. You may need to stretch the toolbar wider to see the full name.

Do please upgrade to Audacity 2.0.5 from http://audacityteam.org/download/windows .

I assume your fundamental issue is that your new machine doesn’t have a mute/unmute for the Line-in on the playback side. That would give you no latency monitoring.

Have you right-clicked over the speaker icon by the system clock, chosen “Playback devices”, right-clicked over your headphones device, chosen “Properties” then clicked “Levels”? If there is a mute/unmute for “Line-in”, that’s where it would be.

Otherwise you’ll need a USB interface that has a headphones output for monitoring.


Gale