I have a mic which worked with Windows Millenium, but doesn't work now that I installed Windows XP. The sound card is an onboard VIA AC'97 Audio Contoller (WDM) by Via Technologies Inc. I went through all the appropriate steps such as configuring the volume, selecting the input channel, etc., however the mic still didn't work on my PC, while it worked on another PC running Windows 98. I though this was a driver problem, so I installed the latest drivers from the Via website. However, there is no difference. The sound output on my PC is working, the only problem is that the volume of the incoming sound seems to be very low. When I speak into the mic on the Configure Speech Recognition Wizard, the volume of input hardly reaches one bar on the scale. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

I have Windows Me ,so Iam not sure how this will work in XP. However I was having a problem also with my mic not being reconized .I checked the volume properties thru the speaker icon on the taskbar ,and made sure the mic wasnt muted, it wasnt , also I went to the control panel and checked the settings in Sounds & Mulimedia, all was OK. I then opened up the Sound Recorder application Start/Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Sound Recorder. I used that application to detect my Mic and ,to this day I dont know why ,it worked ,my mic was now being detected in other applications .I was doing this troubleshooting because I could'nt get my mic working with my web cam .After I did the settings for the Mic in sound recorder , all was good !

What do you mean by 'detect'? I've looked through the Sound Recorder, there is nothing about detecting my mic there. As for using it, it doesn't work just like the other apps. Something I forgot to mention in my 1st post: I've tested my mic with Linux, it works there.

Just in case! You have checked the 'Recording' volume controls, right?

Yes I have.