How can I mute internal mic [Inspiron 15]

Yes.  Open the sound controls (you'll need the advanced ones) and click the mute button/box by the mic. input.

Thanks, is there a way to get a shortcut for this into the status bar?

I can't find the control you mentioned.  I'm new to Windows 8 - please be patient.

I can't find the control you mentioned.  I'm new to Windows 8 - please be patient.

Hello. I don't have Win 8 so please be patient with me. Let me know if this is not right. I don't know what model of laptop you have so I used screen shots from various different models -- don't expect yours to look exactly like these pictures.

Get on the Desktop screen. If you are on Start page with tiles, click on the Desktop tile to go to Desktop mode. Locate the the audio (speaker) icon on the taskbar (picture below).

Right click on the audio icon to open the context menu (picture below).

Click on "Recording devices". The Recording tab of the Sound properties will open with a list of your recording devices (picture below).

Find your microphone in the list and right click on it to open the context menu (picture below).

If you click on "Disable" then your mic will be muted.

If you want to let the mic remain "enabled", then click on "Properties". The internal mic properties screen will open with a row of tabs across the top (picture below).

There are a couple of things you can do there. If you click on the "Listen" tab you can make it so that the mic is on but it does not play through your speakers or headphones. Do that by un-checking "Listen to this device" (picture below).

Or you can click on the "Levels" tab (picture below) to mute the mic.

The sliders are for setting the mic input level. If you click on the button with the speaker on it, the mic will be muted.

[In the far right corner in the picture above, you see the "Advanced" tab. That was mentioned in the first reply in this thread, but I don't know of a way to mute the mic in that tab.]