External microphone does not work? ASUS K56c laptop

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510
I have an Asus k56c laptop, I'm trying to plug a microphone into it to make some recordings... but the computer will only use the internal microphone. It has one jack on the front right panel, with headset and microphone icons right next to it.

It works when I plug in headphones or speakers, but not for a microphone. When I plug in a microphone, it sees it as speakers as well (mutes laptop speakers in favour of trying to output audio through the microphone). I have Realtek HD Audio manager, there's no "Advanced settings" option. I've been trying to solve this and I'm kind of confused as to how to get my laptop to recognize my microphone as a microphone.

Also, no additional devices show up under either Playback or Recording in the Windows sound manager, so disabling the default devices there didn't work. The microphone works on other computers as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! The laptop mic isn't very good and I'd really like to be able to use my own!
 

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510


Yeah, this is actually part of my confusion -
Also, no additional devices show up under either Playback or Recording in the Windows sound manager, so disabling the default devices there didn't work.

For some reason, no other devices show up there aside from the default one and "Stereo Mix" :/

http://i.imgur.com/QbWTPyD.png

I've been testing the input with Sound Recorder as there's only one microphone option visible.

For what it's worth, when I plug in headphones a second option does not appear in the "Playback devices" either, the headphones just replace the output for the same "Speakers" device. I was thinking that the external microphone would be just become the same default "Microphone" device in a similar fashion, but it's being seen as speakers for some reason.
 

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510


I think so, maybe? There's only one slot with a headphone / microphone icon next to it. You're not supposed to be able to just plug in a microphone ot that?
 

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510


It's only 1 port with a headphone/microphone icon next to it, so you might be right. so the port just won't let you simply plug in a microphone, you need a single-cord headset or a splitter? That's a shame

Would this work to fix it? http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/startech-startech-stereo-splitter-cable-muy1mff-muy1mff/10211043.aspx?path=051cdd7598e72e8f07da6521b136590den02
 


No, it will not work, what you are referring to, is splitting a single headphone jack into two.
Here is another one I found on Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/Exclusives%C2%AE-Headset-3-5mm-Smartphone-Adapter/dp/B00D6NPH88/ref=pd_sim_pc_10?ie=UTF8&refRID=1QVWT9YD98WX53AXC86T
 

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510


My apologies for the trouble and I don't mean to offend, but I'm confused about this and hoping you can clarify - what is the difference between http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-MUY1MFFS-Female-Stereo-Splitter/dp/B0081ZBNI4/ and http://www.amazon.com/Exclusives%C2%AE-Headset-3-5mm-Smartphone-Adapter/dp/B00D6NPH88/ref=pd_sim_pc_10?ie=UTF8&refRID=1QVWT9YD98WX53AXC86T ?
 
Don't worry, I'm glad to clarify your confusion, if you can understand the technical informations I'm trying to give you. If you look at the male connector for the splitter you refer to, you have three connections for the stereo headphones, one is ground or common, you have the right and left channels. The cable you need, will have four connections for the male plug, the three for the headphones and one for the microphone, because the microphone is mono. When you use just the headphones or microphone plug, the laptop will only see the connections for the headphones. If you need more clarification, don't hesitate and I will try another way to explain to you the difference between the two.
 

Rook37

Estimable
Apr 5, 2014
6
0
4,510


No that was a really good explanation, thank you! Explaining how each band correlates to each channel definitely helped clarify things and it's probably a good thing to know. I'm still not sure why there's only 3 visible bands on the 4 channel one and 2 visible bands on the 3 channel one but I don't think it matters.

Thank you for all your help though, now I've just got to find one that ships to Canada :)

edit: Would this one work actually? I was looking at this one but it's out of stock and the first one seems like an okay alternative
 

capri-sonne

Estimable
Apr 6, 2015
7
0
4,510


I have experienced the same issue on my Asus laptop, and after reading this topic, I bought the correct adapter.
It still doesn't work. In fact no external mics at all are detected by windows, as nothing shows up in the control panel. I even plugged in a karaoke pc mic and sound came OUT of it.
All my drivers are up to date.
Any solutuions?
 

The urBen

Estimable
Sep 24, 2015
1
0
4,510
I was banging my head on my desk for the longest time about this trying everything in this post and found the answer by accident. If you go to "Set up a microphone" (not sure where this option lives, but i found it by typing it in search for windows 7/8) and go through the steps, it finally recognized it.
 

Ondra_2

Commendable
Mar 2, 2016
3
0
1,510
I bought the cable to divide the signals as this thread suggests and it still doesnt recognize anything. I tried installing w8,1 drivers and everything there is to try and now its just more fu*ked up. I have w10. Please help me solve this, I've been trying to fix this for over a year and ASUS support and other forums just don't care or don't know.
 

sehanhasan

Commendable
Mar 15, 2016
1
0
1,510


Hi, can you try with this: http://www.amazon.com/Vale%C2%AE-Power-Female-3-5mm-x1-1mm/dp/B014H1GYJI/ref=sr_1_13?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1458026592&sr=1-13&keywords=3.5mm+to+usb
 

Ondra_2

Commendable
Mar 2, 2016
3
0
1,510

Yes it works now!
 

dj merci

Commendable
Feb 18, 2016
2
0
1,510


Hey what did you do to get it to work? the last cable example shown at the bottom here by amazon? will it not work with the combo jack splitter cable that has the mic / headphone ?
 

Martinus_1

Commendable
Apr 11, 2016
1
0
1,510

Hi, when i plug my phone headset which has a jack similar to the adapter du showed, it starts using the headset as audio output, but the mic still comes from the laptop.
 

atheeksam

Commendable
Apr 13, 2016
1
0
1,510
If you are using Win 10 on Asus notebooks. There are chances you may come across these issues since asus hasn't released any latest driver updates to support windows 10

Here are few things you can do to revert your sound driver to Microsoft's default driver (High Definition Audio)
- Go to your device manager.
- Check if your system using Realtek high definition audio.
- if so; Delete the driver completely.
- You'll be prompt for a restart.
- After the restart; Check for your playback devices
- Change the outputs manually on playback devices in order to play sound on your device.

Hope this helps...