Microphone does not pick up voice

I am sorry to say but I think that perhaps your Microphone is faulty? These headset leads are notorious for breaking. If you know how to use a meter, perhaps you could check the circuit, and "see" if there is a Microphone attached? Could you "Test" it on another PC? But if this isn't the case below are some helpful links.. I "Googled" this --->troubleshooting microphone problems xp? http://support.plato.com/kb/tip.asp?psid=26055 www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/speech_setup_microphone.mspx

1. Rotate the boom mic end while talking. Visualize and or feel through the foam for a semi cirlcle and flat area. The flat area must align with your mouth. Obviously, there are 2 flat areas, a front and a back.

2. Make sure that the mic inline controller on the wires from headset to PC plug in is not set to mute.

3. Go into Start / Control panel and look for Sounds and Devices and open it. Click on the audio tab. Analyze your options for playback device. You may have more than one playback device available, but perhaps only one really works.

4. What kind of sound card do you have? Do you have onboard sound, which is built into the motherboard like Realtek, or do you have an addon card installed in a PCI, PCI-e, or USB external sound card? Go to Start\Control Panel\System Properties. Select Hardware tab. Click the + sign next to Sound, Video, and Game Controllers. Right click, 1 at a time, on each device, select update driver, and allow the PC to access the internet to get the updated driver. If that was not successful, investigate the sound chip on your motherboard to find out exactly which one it is and go to the manufactures website, or go to the motherboard manufacturer's website and look for a section called support. Search for the appropriate sound driver. Download it

Uninstall the old driver by looking in the device manager as listed above. Reboot the computer. Get back to the device manager screen and select the sound card again. Update driver, and select you have the file saved on a disk or computer. Browse for the downloaded file path, update, reboot computer. Problem should be solved

5. Last, if you still have a problem, perhaps the plug in for the device is slightly defunct. You could try getting an 1 or 2 adapter plugs to change the plug size to a different size with the first extra adapter and then another adapter to switch back to the same size you need. Try to plug it in again and see what happens.

6. More complicated, you can try to increase the mic boost in game settings / options. And also make sure that you try setting all audio in game options to low, then medium, then high..checking each setting for compatability with your headset. You can also change the sampling rate in Start\Control Panel\Sounds and audio devices\Volume\Advanced try maxing and minimizing the hardware acceleration and sampling rate.

Good luck