Question I have tried everything my mic just refuses to WORK.

[Gonçalo Duarte]

So this started around 3 weeks ago when my USB mic broke. I started by trying to plug earphones with a mic in my PC's front panel mic entrance and what was capturing the sound was the place in the earphone where the audio should be coming out from.
Well, I then bought a 3.5mm jack mic and plugged it in the same place that I plugged the earphones and it just won't work but the PC does recognize the mic.
I have:

• Reinstalled, uninstalled and updated the drivers.
• Diactivated and activated the mic.
• Uninstalled the device and reinstalled it.
• I've changed the volume levels of the mic.
• Allowed it to all apps.
• Tried to use an adaptor with one jack and two entrances, one for audio and one for mic and plugged it in both my PC's front panel entrances with the mic and the headphones plugged correctly in the adaptor.

Nothing worked.
My headphones and my Mic are two separate devices.

 

[Paperdoc]

First, jacks and connection systems. Almost all PC's have two separate sockets on the front panel for jacks from audio devices. One is for the earphones (often light green colour), and the other for the mic (usually light pink). Headsets also have two jacks with those colour codes. If you look closely at each of those male jacks you will see that each has THREE contacts called Tip, Ring and Sleeve. This allows for left and right earphones and common Ground, and similar for the mic. However, there is another DIFFERENT jack system used by Apple and many others that has only ONE male jack on a cord, and it has FOUR contacts: Tip, Ring1, Ring2, and Sleeve. It is the same diameter and length as the other type, so it WILL fit into those common front panel sockets. BUT it cannot make the right connections, so it does not work. IF you have one of those, you need a small adapter like this

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Position-Headset-Splitter-Adapter/dp/B0058DOWH6/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1GK0S2X03ESIP&keywords=3.5mm+4+position+to+2x+3+position+3.5mm+headset+splitter+adapter&qid=1640579040&sprefix=headset+adapter+3+to+4,aps,93&sr=8-3

It sounds like you have the opposite adapter that accepts TWO MALE jacks with three contacts each and converts them to one male with FOUR contacts.

Next, how Windows uses audio devices. No matter how many audio output devices (speakers or monitors or whatever) you have, Windows can only use ONE sound output device at a time. In the same way, it can use only ONE SOUND INPUT device at a time. I have no doubt your system was set to use the old mic plugged into a USB port, but now you are trying to use a different mic plugged into a different place. At bottom left type into the search window "sound settings" to pop up a window. Part way down under the INPUT items see the drop-down chooser for "Choose your input device". Use that to choose the front panel jack where you have plugged in your new mic. Then try the "Test your microphone" link below that. Back out of this app when it's working.