# Microphone's picking up sound from my headphones



## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

Hi there. I come with you today with a problem that, apparently, many people have had, but which I have found no solution to.

My microphone's picking up sound from my heaphones, whether it is a youtube video, a game, or a system sound. It has been doing that for a while.
My current headset is a S.O.G XPERT-H1, it has a retractable microphone. The drivers were shipped with the headset on a disk. It's plugged in by a usb cable.
However, the problem appeared a while ago, when I had my old headset, with a microphone that could be plugged in and out and 2 jack plugs (one for the audio, the other for the microphone). I used that headset for a long, long while, maybe several years, and that problem appeared out of the blue recently, when I hadn't touched anything. I figured it probably was in the wiring, and didn't try anything special since it was nearing its death anyway (soon after the left ear stopped playing sound so I replaced it).
That headset, with which the problem appeared, is the predecessor of my current headset, which has the exact same problem once again.

Now I've been searching on google. With the differences between the OS, the drivers, and the variety of headsets, I haven't been able to find something that works for me, let alone looks remotely like my problem. I have read several times that this is just a physical flaw in the hardware and that nothing can be done about it. I call ********, since it was working fine before (although not with this current headset), and the problem appeared overnight.

Here's what I've tried :
- Plugging it into the back on my computer, instead of the front (I've had to reinstall the drivers while doing that)
- Lowering the microphone boost (there is no boost feature on my current headset, there was one on my last headset and it did -kinda- work, but then people couldn't hear my voice)
- Lowering the volume (of course, it works, but it's not a solution since then I can't hear ****)
- Checking "disable all sounds" in the communications tab in my sound settings, which does not do anything except mute the rest of the applications during a Skype call (which I do not use anyway, I use Discord)
- Checking for newer drivers, but I didn't find any

What can I tell you more ... this is most likely not due to my headphones having bad isolation, when I mute my microphone the issue disappears (whether by disabling it via the control panel, via the headset's remote, or via lowering it to 0%) and when I listen to my own microphone I can hear the sound from my computer echoing (even if it is kind of hard since the sounds are being played at the same time, I can still notice a faint echo).

That's roughly all I can think about for now.

The issue is big enough that I have to use push-to-talk or mute myself, otherwise people can sometimes hear their own echo, or hear loud sounds coming from windows / some video games. Just like if I had speakers, except I don't ...


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

Sounds like you have Stereo Mix (or What You Hear if using a Creative chipset) enabled, which allows users to share their desktop audio.


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## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

There is no Stereo Mix device in my recording devices, so it's not that either.

I made a quick test to make sure that it wasn't sound leaking out of the headphones : I put cloth around the microphone, made sure that my voice was barely audible, and the sound from windows was as audible as before, so unless it's in the wires I don't think it's physical.

Thanks for the help, JimE


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

I wouldn't expect it to be headphone or mic related as it has occurred using two different sets and using two different inputs.

This is classical stereo mix.

Manually update/reinstall the audio drivers.

Also, as you are now using USB input, there will also be a USB related audio chipset/drivers as USB inputs do not use the 3.5mm inputs of the onboard chipset.


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## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

Alright, so I just had a bright revelation. I just remembered that, about the time when the issue appeared, I got a new monitor, with which I decided to use an HDMI cable. I just read up that HDMI does not only move video info, but also audio. For information, my monitor doesn't have audio.

I just tried a DVI/HDMI adaptater, and afterwards a VGA/DVI adaptater (since my gpu doesn't have a VGA port). That didn't do anything, so I decided to look at the drivers.
I had noticed that I now had 3 different audio drivers with a bunch of audio devices, one's my regular motherboard drivers for the 3.5mm ports, the second's my usb drivers for the new headset, the third is "ADM High Definition Audio" that I suspected is for the HDMI port of my gpu.
Thing is, the issue appeared when I changed monitor, not gpu. So were these drivers there before the issue appeared ? Idk.



















In any case, my problem now's I still don't know what the problem exactly is, and if I try to uninstall the ADM HDA drivers, they reappear after a reboot. I'll keep searching. Thanks for the help


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## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

Didn't find the edit function.

I just updated my AMD drivers (that included the ADM High Definition Audio drivers), it didn't fix the problem.

I also decided to install Realtek drivers, so now the "Périphérique High Definition Audio" that you can see in the screenshot is replaced by "Realtek High Definition Audio", the "Casque" (Headphones) entry has disappeared and in the recording devices, a "Stereo Mix" entry has appeared, which was disabled by default. I enabled and disabled it just in case but it didn't fix my problem.

I found no option to uninstall the AMD HDA drivers in AMD's Catalyst Control Center.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

The number of audio chipsets installed shouldn't affect operation, so whether you only have 1 audio chipset or 10, it shouldn't matter.

The AMD High Definition audio (sometimes listed as AMD HDMI audio) is simply the audio chipset on the video card which is used to process audio for output over HDMI. Again, it doesn't matter if your monitor has speakers or not, as unless you select the device as an output, it's not used.

You should also check the SOG config for anything similar to stereo mix (or other mic processing).

I've also seen third party software cause issues, but no specifics come to mind at the moment.


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## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

The SOG drivers are very minimalistic, contrary to what they looked like in the booklet that was contained with the headset. They also look unfinished. I've searched them for options and didn't find anything weird except a "Monitor" slider in the microphone options that doesn't seem to do anything.










So, the SOG drivers sure look wonky. I know they have a technical support since I have already contacted them for another issue. I'll give this a go.

I'd find it weird if the issue lied there, since my previous headset (that used the regular chipset drivers) had the same problem. I also have to tell you that, after installing the realtek drivers, I gave the old headset a go and the issue was still present.


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## Modinstaller (Jul 27, 2014)

SOG's technical support replied telling me to disable the boost. There's no boost, but by searching through my options, I stumbled upon something that I had omitted to tell you :

There is a "microphone" slider in the level control of my speakers (which are labelled speakers even if I have a headset). The only thing it does is make myself hear the sound coming from my microphone, but at a very low level. It's barely audible, and I have no clue as to what reason this thing has to exist.

In any case, if everyone else is as clueless as me, then I guess we've hit a wall. I'll test my microphone on another computer soon to see if anything changes.


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