Various problems making me want to break my computer!

[Jibba]

Please any help much appreciated before I throw this godforsaken laptop across my room!

I've previousloy managed to record full music mixes onto my laptop via audacity but for some reason I've tried to set my recording and sound options this time and i'm getting nowhere. I've tried using all three ports (headphone, line in and mic) with my jack to phono lead and each time I can only seem to get sound coming from the mic input which also means I get unwanted sounds recorded from my room - ie me coughing in the sodding background! I've tried all kinds of different settings on my recording control function within windows and within audacity have tried every possible setting on the mixer toolbar yet can't even see a meter toolbar!!!

Nothing I've tried has worked...the audacity help page and main homepage haven't helped either - partly because they don't seem to cover my problem and also contain too much jargon for me.

Any help would be great.

[email protected]

[kozikowski]

There is another posting from someone whose microphone just won't go off. Are you running Skype or other "telephone" program that needs to take over the microphone in order to work right?

Koz

[hellosailor]

I had similar problems caused by the mis-installation of a Creative X-Fi notebook card under Vista. Creative's drivers are way behind the times and their explanations of what and how to install, even worse. Even when I 'disabled' the onboard mic in the control panel, I would get mic input ALL THE TIME.

The only way to get rid of it was to disable the onboard sound device, as a device, in the "device manager" itself.

Following a total clean install and using the latest X-Fi driver...no more problem. So I'd suspect you have a problem caused by sound card drivers that are incompatible with your OS. Try removing all of the sound devices, in the device manager, and then reinstalling JUST the system's native sound device first. If that works, add in whatever outboard device(s) you may have and see when the problem comes up.

If you're running in Vista especially, restarting when prompted, and totally disabling any antivirus or similar software during program and device installation, should be considered mandatory. The OS seems to be incredibly fragile during installations.

[Jibba]

@ Hellosailor, i'm trying those things now thanks.

Sounds like it may well help my cause.