Gaming Mic issues

[Guild McCommunist]

So, as anyone whose chatted with me on Skype knows (aka people I only know in real life), my mic has been having a big issue regarding audio I'm hearing. Whenever I plug in my headset (either the mic jack, the headphone jack, or both), people can hear whatever audio I'm hearing. For example, if I plug in my headphone jack while Skype chatting, people can hear whatever music I'm listening too even if my mic jack is unplugged. It's especially annoying when I'm trying to play a game with someone and all they hear is my game's noises.

If you need any additional info then post it. I'm just hoping I can get this stupid issue resolved.

 

[Xuphor]

So, as anyone whose chatted with me on Skype knows (aka people I only know in real life), my mic has been having a big issue regarding audio I'm hearing. Whenever I plug in my headset (either the mic jack, the headphone jack, or both), people can hear whatever audio I'm hearing. For example, if I plug in my headphone jack while Skype chatting, people can hear whatever music I'm listening too even if my mic jack is unplugged. It's especially annoying when I'm trying to play a game with someone and all they hear is my game's noises.

If you need any additional info then post it. I'm just hoping I can get this stupid issue resolved.

A few things can cause this.
1 - (the obvious, gotta state it) Double check that all plugs are in the correct port.
2 - Right click your taskbar speaker icon, Recording devices. Click Properties on ALL of them listed including your mic, and make sure that "Listen to this Device" is NOT checked.
3 - Right click your taskbar speaker icon, Open Volume Mixer. Make sure nothing got slid in the wrong way, and make sure that there's not any merging audio volume into your headset.
4 - It might be a setting in Skype. I don't use Skype (so I don't know for sure), but if none of these other 3 things are your problem, it's likely a setting in Skype.

 

[exangel]

I have experienced this in a couple of my laptops when using 3.5mm audio jacks. It's only been a problem in skype since switching to windows 7 now that I think about it.

I've also had the issue where someone talking to me on skype mutes themself and I dont realize it, and suddenly I hear what they hear from me, but I hear nothing they're doing, which is probably directly related.

Windows 7 allows you to make specific settings for "Communications" devices. Keep those settings in mind as well. Replugging things during a call may not always work with this correctly.



On my previous desktop computer my front panel jacks were actually broken and I had to get myself a USB voip soundcard to continue using the headset i liked. Newegg has them for sale in the $10-$30 range, I personally went with the best one I could possibly find that was designed exclusively for voip headsets. I did this because I preferred to leave my surround speakers on for game sounds and use headset strictly for voip and it is easy to set a USB soundcard as the skype or vent device without messing up surround sound settings.

I still use the Turtle Beach Amigo II USB sound adapter which was pretty much the top of the line for that type of product because my arena partner at the time used a Turtle Beach headset he'd originally gotten for XBOX 360 and he sounded very clear. But you can get a similar solution for less than half what I paid if the brand isn't important to you.


edit: appears I forgot to mention that when using the USB adapter I've never had any such problem...