Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Lost mixer as input device

Last response: in Windows 7
Share

Hello, I have a Toshiba Satellite A665-S6086 laptop which had to be re-imaged back to out of the box status. Before the re-imaging, the Realtek audio controller had a mixer panel in its device manager, and on the system volume control, that allowed me to record from the mix of audio going to the speaker (labeled "stereo mix"). Now, I find that the ONLY recording device that EXISTS is the physical built-in microphone; I just recorded a streamed radio program, and it was basically recording the room noises and, very faintly, the audio from the speaker. That was how I discovered the change in software environment. Toshiba cannot help since the warranty has expired and I cannot afford paid help. I have tried downloading the driver from the recovery partition; it installs but does not correct the problem. I have tried uninstalling both audio devices and letting them reinstall on restart. I can play audio to the speakers, but not record the audio internally. Any ideas?

More about : lost mixer input device

Register or log in to remove

jallan32 said:
Hello, I have a Toshiba Satellite A665-S6086 laptop which had to be re-imaged back to out of the box status. Before the re-imaging, the Realtek audio controller had a mixer panel in its device manager, and on the system volume control, that allowed me to record from the mix of audio going to the speaker (labeled "stereo mix"). Now, I find that the ONLY recording device that EXISTS is the physical built-in microphone; I just recorded a streamed radio program, and it was basically recording the room noises and, very faintly, the audio from the speaker. That was how I discovered the change in software environment. Toshiba cannot help since the warranty has expired and I cannot afford paid help. I have tried downloading the driver from the recovery partition; it installs but does not correct the problem. I have tried uninstalling both audio devices and letting them reinstall on restart. I can play audio to the speakers, but not record the audio internally. Any ideas?


Update to problem: I found advice on another forum (Toshiba) that pointed me to where to find the stereo mixer device on the control panel, enabled it, and immediately after doing so, I began to get audio feedback whenever the master volume is turned up more than a very low level and not muted. The only way to stop the feedback was to mute the speaker; even disabling the built-in mike and the (not connected to anything) mike jack did not stop it. The only cure for the feedback was to disable the stereo mixer, taking me back to the "original" problem. I say "original" in quotes because, when the computer really WAS fresh out of the box, everything worked fine, up until the corruption that required the system restore back to "out of the box" conditions. I'm beginning to think that Toshiba set up the recovery disk so that it does not restore EVERYTHING correctly if the computer is out of warranty, as a way of getting service call revenue!

Anybody have any OTHER ideas?

Somehow everything fixed itself after another reboot of Windows, so a retract my :sarcastic:  accusation against Toshiba. It just seemed strange that the way to have the device show up in the list was to right click on WHITE SPACE in the list box and select a "do not hide" option! I have resumed recording from the "stereo mix" source, and the feedback went away. I am happy now, but still unsure why. :??:  :bounce: 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Windows 7 categories
!