MICROPHONE LOUDNES

When I go into a voice chat area I have the volume up all the way and yet everyone says the volume is very low and the volume bar on the chat area hardly moves. Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing? Someone helped me before and I got the sound perfect but don't remember what they told me to do. And of course when I had a problem with my computer the great (I JOKE) tech department had me restore the system to factory settings so the mic volume is back to what it was before. HELP PLEASE