[Doberman]

I have a Dell Inspirion using a Logitech ClearTalk microphone/headset. I have a problem getting Skype or Voice Recorder to recognize the microphone, the sound works fine. When I bring up VOLUME CONTROL there is no column called MICROPHONE. Also, when I go to PROPERTIES, there is NO Microphone checkbox in playback. I have clicked on recording, made sure MICROPHONE is selected, etc. I have loaded and reloaded the SigmaTel drivers from Dell's site. (Dell's support is completely worthless!)

When I am in Skype and try the test call it shows Microphone Muted - but again there's no place to mute the mic because there no Mic shown in Volume Control.

Here's the kicker - when I go into Audacity and record from the microphone, no problem at all - it picks up whatever I say. Anyone have any idea what's going on? I did the Dell Diagnostics from the boot - it merely says there's an error and gives me a goofy error code which the Dell tech didn't understand 6563:161B).

Does anyone have any idea? I originally had this problem when I bought this headset, some how fixed it (don't remember how) and used Skype, etc fine for months. A power failure on Friday put it back into non-working Status. I did a restore to Friday, didn't bring back the microphone though. HELP!

[Element]

When you say you fixed it before the system restore, did you update your audio drivers?

If you did, the system restore would have un-done that change. If i were you, first thing would be to update your drivers.