Question Microphone not working on computer

[avignois]

I'm stumped and curious to know the answer more for the mystery than the inconvenience it's caused me:

I bought a simple 3.5 mm microphone a few weeks ago. When I plug it into my phone, it picks up sound fine; but when I plug it into my Windows 10 computer, there's nothing. My computer picks up the sound from the mike built into my USB webcam fine.
When I plug my 3.5mm mike into the microphone slots (both front and back), the bars next to the Volume Mixer-Recording-Mike go green, showing that it's picking up the mike, but when I speak into the mike the bars do not do anything (they stay grey). I've tried updating the drivers, but it says I have the most recent audio drivers.

I have no idea what the problem might be - the mike works, my computer picks up a USB mike, the jacks seem okay.
Any ideas out there? Thanks!

 

[hang-the-9]

Are the jacks you put the mic in configured for a mic input? Did you look in the audio options to see what the default mic is? It may be picking up the mic in the webcam unless you manually change it.

 

[avignois]

Thanks for the reply~
During the testing process I had unplugged the USB mic so that there wasn't conflict between the two. The system seem to be picking up the jack as the default system mic, but I don't see any indication that it's picking up the mic hardware.
I'm not sure how to check whether the jacks are configured for mics, other than the fact that it has the mic icon and the audio options seem to register input when I plug in the mic.