Audacity Forum

I can't get the program to record from the sound card, it tries to record from the speakers, I have a HP laptop, using Conexant High Definition Smart Audio 221, the choices in Audacity preferences are "Microsoft Sound Mapper" and "Microphone - Conexant High Def", neither choice will record for me, I get sporadic sounds when trying to record from other programs or internet sounds.

I read that three times. In one sentence, what are you trying to do? Forget what it does. What's the goal?

Koz

The goal is to get the program to record music/sounds that are played on the computer, as in capturing streaming audio. I can do this on my desktop ok, but my laptop wont.

Whether you can do this or not on a particular computer depends entirely on its soundcard and associated drivers. And note that manufactures appear to be removing this option more frequently now (presumably to aid stopping piracy - as if ... ).

My older DEll desktop won't do this - but my newer Dell laptop does.

As you are on a laptop it is likely that you only have a mic in and not a line in - so looping back the sound from the soundcard to itself may not be an option for a workaround. If this is the case then you can consider buying an external USB soundcard and looping back its outputs to its inputs - I ised to do this with my desktop until I bought the laptop.

See this thread for a review of soundcards that are known to work well with Audacity: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

WC