# [SOLVED] Weird/complicated Steam Microphone echo problem



## osterac (Sep 27, 2012)

Hi,
I've been trying to get steam chat working properly for a while now, at the moment I'm testing between two local PCs, one with XP and one with Windows 7; the Windows 7 PC being the problem device. They both have Realtek HD audio cards from about the same era, but the Windows 7 PC is giving me an annoying echo during steam chat (even with headphones). On the XP PC, there is only an echo during the Steam sound test, presumably so you can check your levels. Otherwise it works well. I expect this is normal for steam. On the Windows 7 PC, the echo is there on the steam sound test and it is still there during voice chat.

I've tried muting the microphone, but for some reason this just makes the mic volume go down, to the point where it doesn't pick up my voice very well (also the steam sound test doesn't pick up anything, but steam voice chat does). There doesn't seem to be a way to mute it completely. Plus, the mic volume controls in the Realtek control panel don't seem to do anything, they aren't linked to the windows ones. I have mic listen off, and If I mute the playback volume (from windows, I'm not sure that the Realtek one works) I get one echo instead of two. I have stereo mix muted already. I have an asus xonar DS I could put in, can't recall the reason I took it out just now, but if all else fails...

So can anyone make heads or tails of this mess? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.


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## Flight Sim Guy (Dec 19, 2011)

Have you updated your sound card driver in the problem PC?


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## osterac (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Weird/complicated Steam Microphone echo problem*

I had the latest drivers, but I decided to try and reinstall them anyway. Upon preliminary testing, it seems to have cleared up the problem.... Seems strange for such a long standing issue, I've gone through several driver updates and this issue remained. 
Thanks though, it seems to be fixed.


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## Flight Sim Guy (Dec 19, 2011)

Nice.  If you're done, then please mark this thread as solved. And let us know if the problem returns.

FSG


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