Hi all. The combo audio jack on my Razor Blade 15 (2018) no longer recognizes a microphone. It recognizes an audio output only. I recall when I used to plug in a headset it would ask me what I'd just plugged in, and I could specify. Now it doesn't ask, but it does recognize a headset as an audio out. It just doesn't recognize that there's a microphone on the headset.



I've tried with two headsets, one with a single TRRS jack, and one headset that uses two separate (mic and headphone) TRS jacks going into a 2xTRS->TRRS splitter adaptor, and it's both the same.



I've tried reinstalling the Realtek driver and the Realtek app, and nothing helps. This used to work. I haven't tried plugging in a headset in some time, so I don't know exactly when this stopped working, but I desperately need this working this weekend because I need to use this laptop to live stream an event and I need to be able to plug in a microphone to this combo jack.



Anyone seen this before? Why does the Realtek driver no longer prompt me to explain what I've just plugged in? Why does it recognize only an audio output, but no input? Btw, it recognizes whatever I've plugged in as an audio input even when I plug in just the Y-adaptor with only the microphone plugged into it and no headphone plugged in at all.



Edit:



Ok, so the problem seems to be that Realtek HD Audio Manager is no longer installed. That's the software that would pop up and ask what I just plugged in to the microphone jack.

3.

Earlier through some combination of experimentation I actually had the Sound properties show the side 3.5mm jack, and I was in fact able to get some sound recorded from a mic that was plugged in. It was also recording from the Razer Blade's internal mic at the same time, and there was no way to configure it not to be. After uninstalling and reinstalling the driver even that progress disappeared, and now in the Sound properties for recording it only shows the build-in microphone.



So the question is: where did Realtek HD Audio Manager go? Why is it gone? I just did a full Windows reset, downloaded the Realtek driver from the Razer support download section, and it just isn't there. I think the key to me getting a usable external mic is getting Realtek HD Audio Manager installed again.