I earlier posted a list in which I had mistakenly said the 9300 has a mic. I apologize if you saw that list. This is the correction:

As reported by posters on the forum (might not be totally accurate):

With mic:

2500, 3200, 3500, 3700, 3800, 4000, 4100, 4150, 5000, 7000, 7500, 8000, 8100, 8200, 8500, XPS, 600m before March, 8600, 9100


Without:

300m, 500m, 600m after March w/Broadcom 440 network card, 1000, 1100, 1150, 2600, 2650, 2600, 5100, 5150, 5160?, 6000, 9200, 9300, 700m, XPS Gen2

Jim

Join the club. :( Many, many people are stunned by this lack of a microphone on even high-end Dell notebooks now. See this as just one of MANY threads on the subject:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&message.id=24110

Dell does now realize this is a mistake, and eventually (maybe late next year?) new models will have microphones. But the rest of us need to get an external microphone or a headset.

It's really too bad--Dell has shown (with the Latitude D800, e.g.) that it knows just how to do it right, but they saved a buck or two (per machine--it does add up) by dropping them. That dollar or two per machine, though, has really cost users big time, not so much in money (microphones or headsets can be cheap and still reasonably good), but time and inconvenience.

I got a few headsets like this for myself and friends. The quality's good (but not _great_)--under $6 shipped:

http://tinyurl.com/96plk

[If that link doesn't work, try http://tinyurl.com/b5w2v and search for "skype".]

I have NO financial or connection whatever with the seller, BTW, aside from being a basically satisfied customer (shipping and cust service were slow, though).

Message Edited by AT_Wolfgang on 11-03-2005 03:51 PM

Well after spending $3,500 + on a computer less than 2 months ago a DELL,  that already has had a hard drive crash and not speaking to but one person in Dell Support that understands English very well, hard lesson learned.  Thank you for your input, I will check it out. 

 

I've had good success with Dell Chat support, though it's taken more effort than it should have. :( The particular person you get makes ALL the difference, for better (my luck a couple times) or worse (a couple other times).

One thing to avoid: e-mail support. Useless. Endless loop of repeated Try A [didn't work]-> Try B [didn't work]-> Try C [already did--didn't work]-> Try A [I already did--check the history!] -> Try B..... (Or so was my almost comically bad situation when I had an Axim problem a while back. 41 e-mails back and forth, until I finally, independently, figured out the problem--at which time their response was, "Well, no news there--we could have told you that." Grrrr....)

But given their prompt and effective help with a DVD burner issue (exchanged by somewhat evil Sony burner for a much better NEC burner even before total failure--very nice of them, very helpful for me), I know that Dell does sometimes offer very good support.

Try one of the microphones or headsets I linked to earlier--they'll help a lot.

Now if only this thing had a trackpoint (er, "pointing stick" in Dell's terminology), it'd be as use friendly (almost) as my 5-year-old Thinkpad and I'd be deeply happy with it.

What a piece of JUNK!  You pay for Premier support and then the microphone doesn't work, this is CLEARLY a dell issue however, DELL ONCE AGAIN won't stand behind their faulty products!  I've read on the website where there has to be an entry made into the registry to make the microphone work, and you can get that to happen if you pay DELL $99.00 to make it happen. 

NEVER will another DELL PRODUCT be purchased in this household, thank you DELL for yet another confirmation of why NO ONE should purchase your products!

Merry Christmas!

I tried that already, thank you though for trying to help.  To me it's simple you plug the headset in, I have XP Professional and it works.  I can't hear myself on the microphone at all, the only thing I hear is the playback, yet as I said if I use Sound Recorder it works.  They (Dell) know this is an issue, look at all the posts they've had regarding it.  You would think as much as I paid for this computer it would do everything but stand up and salute. 

I'm just very dissapointed in the product overall, I have a Dell Desktop that is 4 years old and never had issues with it as I have had with this one. 

Thank you once again for your time, I do appreciate it.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the software you're talking about, but one possibility that comes to mind (forgive me if you've already tried this, as may well be the case):

Under the Volume Control Options, select properties, the Recording Devices, and then make sure the microphone is not muted, the volume level is high enough, and (if necessary) that the Advanced setting of "boost" is turned on.

That MIGHT solve the problem. Or it could be something else entirely, something probably having to do with the particular software in question (particularly if the microphone works in other contexts)--maybe it's not configured to record microphone input, e.g.

These are dumb suggestions if you've already tried them, but just as naive brainstorming....

Godspeed and good luck!

"They (Dell) know this is an issue,..." You would think that by now they would know the answer to this one since it has been posted in this forum literally dozens of times in the last couple of years, and back when we had a moderator I got him to put this in the FAQ's. What I can't understand is why has this has never made it into the scripts the support people read from.

Dell ships the Inspirons with the ability to monitor the input at the mic jack turned off. On most models (don't know about the 9300 yet, see notes at bottom) this can be restored by editing the Registry subkey 'DisableMicFromPlayback' in Windows XP.


1. Go to Start menu and click on Run. Type 'regedit' without quotes and click OK to open the Registry.
2. At the top of the list, highlight My Computer.
3. Under the Edit menu, select Find.
4. Type in 'DisableMicFromPlayback' without quotes and click 'find next'.
5. Highlight DisableMicFromPlayback. Right click on it and select Modify.
6. Highlight 01 and change to 00. Click OK.
7. Optional (but 8600 users should do this) find "EnablePoPBypass" and set the value to 00.
8. Optional (but 600 & 6000 should do this) find "DisableMicSelect" and set the value to 00.
9. Exit the Registry and restart the computer.

Next, configure the system mixer:

1. Open Volume Control by right clicking on the speaker icon on the taskbar, or go to Start/Control Panel/ Sound & Audio Devices Properties/Advanced (button).
2. Under the Options menu, select Properties.
3. Under 'show the following volume controls' check the box next to Microphone. Click OK.
4. A mic control appears in the Volume Control. Make sure the mute box is unchecked.
5. If your external audio source (a stereo or tv tuner etc that you have connected to the mic jack) has a way to control its volume level, turn it down to control excessive volume.

Jim


NOTES:

This Registry edit was originally posted in a basic form first by dilleyo and then jk79. I have put it into this step-by-step format for those of us who are not familiar with editing the Registry.

Users of Inspiron 1100, 1150, 1200, 2200, 5100, 5150, 5160, 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 500m, 600m, 700m, xps and xps gen2 found the subkey 'DisableMicFromPlayback'.

Users of Inspiron 4150, 4700 and 8100 did not find the subkey in their Registries.

If you don't find it by using the Registry's search utility try looking for it by following this direct Registry path to the key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\
{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0005\Settings.

Another thing you can do while you are in the Registry is to find "DisablePeakmeters" and set the value to 00. This will place an input level meter on the Recording Control panel and an output level meter on the Volume Control panel. These are useful when you are recording with a barebones program like Windows Sound Recorder that doesn't have meters.

It is wise to create a System Restore point before editing the Registry. If you accidentally make incorrect edits while in there you could cripple your computer, but using System Restore should correct any problems. To create a new Restore Point go to Start/Help & Support/System Restore and tick 'Create a restore point'.

God Bless You for helping out, after reading all the problems other people had, it was very discouraging to find no help from Dell, thank you for taking the time to help me. 

I'll give it a try and see what happens and let you know.  And, I'll continue the process to file a complaint with Dell about this issue too. 

Thank you once again

Your instructions worked Jim and you are a SAINT!! As far as Dell, let's hope Pat doesn't win a multi-million dollar lotto and start my own business and buy a couple hundred desktops that won't be a DELL desktop. 

Frustraution, total frustration that they are at fault on this and can not give folks a way to fix the problem, took me all of 5 minutes to make it work and they were going to charge $99.00 to me to have this happen.

Hope they continue to learn the lessons they are going to learn, my next system will NOT be a Dell, doesn't mean anything to them I'm sure, but this has been a very crooked way to handle what shouldn've been made right from the start.  All they had to do was post a solution.

Thank God you did, to have folks save their hard earned money for something DELL is responsible for .

God Bless Pat

Incredible there is no microphone!!! As large as the physical format for this 9300 is there should be choice of high quality microphones available.  Chalk this lesson up to "remember to read the fine print"