Microphone array missing from Device Manager

Question

Hi,

The microphone on my wife's Surface Laptop isn't working, and the "Micrphone Array" is simply missing from the device Manager. I already uninstalled and reinstalled the Realtek High Definition Audio drivers, to no avail.

It does not show in the Recording Devices dialog box, not even as disabled or disconnected.

I also tried the troubleshooters: the Speech troubleshooter that comes with Windows crashes on the middle of deployment. The Recording Audio troubleshooter runs till it lists the hardware available. Here, it lists the external microphone (that is not connected), but the local where it should list the internal array is blank (although selectable). After this, the troubleshooter crashes. 

I also found an equivalent troubleshooter online, on one Microsoft site. This downloads, but doesn't deploy, returns an "unknown error".

The computer is running Windows version 1709, OS Build 16299.309.

I also tried manually download the latest drivers and firmware from Microsoft, installed it but nothing changes.

I'm absolutely lost. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

//Ricardo

Answer 1

The Recording Audio troubleshooter runs till it lists the hardware available. Here, it lists the external microphone (that is not connected), but the local where it should list the internal array is blank (although selectable). After this, the troubleshooter crashes.

One option you could try instead would be to use the PowerShell equivalent while using Administrator: Windows PowerShell (e.g. to ensure that the troubleshooter was being executed while elevated).  It may give a different perspective to your "crash" symptom too.

CD $env:windir\Diagnostics\System\Audio

$P = Get-TroubleshootingPack  .

Invoke-TroubleshootingPack  $P  -Result $env:TEMP\TA

You will see the prompts as numeric inputs.  Then when you are done you can go to the Result location to find some reports.  IE can be used to find them by AutoComplete in the Address bar and will partially interpret them for you.

HTH

Robert

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Answer 2

This running the sound recording troubleshooter. The hardware and devices troubleshooter finds no problems.

That download is really old.  I reproduced the symptom with it and tried (using ProcMon) to understand why it reported the problem but just got lost.   Use the two troubleshooters which are built-in W10 for helping with microphone problems.   Recording Audio and Speech.   You may have to use the View All button in the Control Panel to see those both listed.  Getting Cortana set up is another method of testing your microphone.

Oh.  You reported that those both "crashed".  Then that would be the symptom to try to solve, not the symptom that you are highlighting.  Do you have ProcMon?  You could get some clues from it, my lack of success with the other problem notwithstanding.  In fact, you probably should be doing the usual  DISM and  SFC  checks to make sure that you have all the necessary modules in place first.

HTH

Robert

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