Owners of Dell computers using the Intel Tiger Lake Central Processing Unit (CPU) may experience an intermittent microphone drop. This can be seen after the computer resumes from hibernation, Sleep, or after a restart.
Other symptoms include:
This problem can be seen when using a peripheral with an integrated microphone such as the:
The Intel Smart Sound Technology (ISST) driver is installed on computers with a Tiger Lake CPU.
ISST is an integrated audio Digital Signal Processor (DSP) that is built to handle audio, voice, and speech interactions. The ISST enables the audio USB to offload from the CPU to the Intel DSP.
In a computer running a different CPU, a Microsoft inbox driver is installed. You do not see this issue with the MSFT driver.
Intel reports that this issue is seen when the Intel USB audio driver gets stuck on an 8 KHz recording path. (Although the default recording bit rate should be 16 kHz.)
The following steps take you through resolving this issue on those computers using the Tiger Lake CPU and the Intel Smart Sound Technology:
Open the Device Manager application:
Press the Windows Key + X together to open the Power menu and press M to open the device manager.
Right click on the start menu logo and click on device manager from the menu that appears.
Press Ctrl + R to open a run box. Type devmgmnt.msc
and press the Enter key.
Identify your version of the Intel Smart Sound Technology driver and follow the appropriate instructions:
You can disable the ISST OED driver in Device manager. Open System Devices and right click on the driver to open its properties box. Click the Driver tab and click disable driver. (See figure.1)
You can clear the check box next to Enable audio enhancement in the Headphones/Microphones Advanced properties tab. Right click on the device in Playback in the Sounds application and select Properties. (See figure.1)
(Figure.1 Configuration Screens)
You can disable the ISST for USB audio driver in Device manager. Open Sound, video and game controllers and right click on the driver to open its menu. Click disable device. (See figure.2)
(Figure.2 Device Manager Configuration)
You can clear the Hardware Acceleration and the Signal Enhancements check boxes in the Headphones/Microphone Advanced properties tab. Right click on the device in Playback in the Sounds application and select Properties. (See figure.3)
(Figure.3 Sound Device Properties)