Question Windows 10 is playing audio through the microphone ?

[deskowl]

Hi,
After a recent restart which happened while I was sleeping this morning (21st March, 2021), my microphone has no longer been detecting audio and instead I am playing desktop audio (games, youtube, music, etc) over my microphone.

I was talking with a friend last night and my microphone was working completely fine, so something has changed.

I assume an update during the past 24 hours, most likely occurring while I was asleep, has caused this issue, but I am wondering if anyone else has experienced such an issue and been able to resolve it ?

So far I have tried:

• Reinstalling drivers
• Uninstalling recent windows updates
• Checking microphone permissions
• Reconnecting audio

I'm using Build 1909 for Windows 10 by the way.

Thanks,
Deskowl

EDIT 1:
I posted this down below but I will copy it here in case it gets lost:
Just a quick update:
I use PEACE equalizer to change some sound settings for CSGO so I can actually hear footsteps, and when I activated my CSGO configuration today (which alters the frequences 16, 32, 63, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000 Hz by +0, +0, +0, +2, +4, +5.5, +7, +8.5, +10, +8, +6, +0, +0 respectively) I was able to speak on my microphone and people wouldn't hear my in-game sound in Discord. However, my microphone is very very quiet now, and I have to turn my boost up to +30dB for people to hear me.

Also, when I turn my PEACE settings back to their normal values (frequencies 10, 21, 42, 83, 166, 333, 577, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000, 20000 all with +0dB gain values) my microphone is now detecting my voice and not desktop audio.

EDIT 2:
Ok, my microphone has randomly swapped back to broadcasting my desktop audio through it and not detecting my speech (with both PEACE settings listed above, just in case that bit of information is useful).

 

[Colif]

Microphones and Speakers are like that, can be either.

What Microphone is it? give me something to start from.

updating to 20H2 probably wouldn't fix it but it will mean you won't be forced to do it in a few weeks when 21H1 is released. Microsoft only support 3 versions and yours will be on the list of PC's to upgrade
either click 1st link and download upgrade assistant
or click 2nd link and use the media creation tool
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

 

[deskowl]

Hi,
sorry, I should've mentioned in the original post that it's a Sennheiser PC37x headset (so the microphone is one that is attached to the headset).

I downloaded and installed the 20H2 update using the link you gave but as you suspected it did not help.

Thanks again

 

[deskowl]

Just a quick update:
I use PEACE equalizer to change some sound settings for CSGO so I can actually hear footsteps, and when I activated my CSGO configuration today (which alters the frequences 16, 32, 63, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000 Hz by +0, +0, +0, +2, +4, +5.5, +7, +8.5, +10, +8, +6, +0, +0 respectively) I was able to speak on my microphone and people wouldn't hear my in-game sound in Discord. However, my microphone is very very quiet now, and I have to turn my boost up to +30dB for people to hear me.

Also, when I turn my PEACE settings back to their normal values (frequencies 10, 21, 42, 83, 166, 333, 577, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000, 20000 all with +0dB gain values) my microphone is now detecting my voice and not desktop audio.