Skype- "I cant hear them"?

foreveramum

Can anyone tell me what I doing wrong please and how to correct this?

I have just started using skype to talk to a friend and all went well as I set it up and plugged in the microphone. I do not have a built in mic on my laptop so used my sons headset type which slots into the side next to the mouse?

Anyway we connected and I started talking and my friend said she could hear me but I could not hear her? We tried everything but could not get her voice over and so we had a strange chat where I spoke and she typed text!!

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and do I need to go and buy a certain mic to use this way?

Thanks for any info to clear this up.

New_Collier

Had similar problems myself. I am not a techie so solved it through trial and error. The headset which worked for me was one I had used with a voice recognition software - it connected with two jackplugs, a red and a black wire.
But the better solution was buying a skype phone from Home Bargains - £4.99. I thought it wont work atthis price - but it did. They still have them in my store. [& a more expensive version c £14]

aerostar

Does the skype test call work properly ?, if it does then the fault could well be at your friends computer, if you cannot hear skype, then you may have muted your speakers or got the volume down. check that you can playback music and hear it.

victor2

I agree with aerostar, the fault may be at the other end. My father had exactly the same problem and ended up miming. I sorted it eventually by disabling the "Automatically adjust microphone settings" option in the Audio Settings section of his Skype. Your friend would have the same issue without anyone else she calls too if that is the case. Best to run the echo test at both ends to get an idea where the problem lies.

foreveramum

Thanks for the help everyone,

I had the mute sorted and tested the sound with music and it worked ok. Also another point which may help anyone to understand is that before I plugged the mic in I could hear my friend? Then when I plugged mine in she could hear me but i could not hear her?

Sorry for being a pain and will go through skype settings bit by bit but just wondered if it was something simple i had overlooked?

macman

Have you tried the Skype test call as suggested?

Jeff_Bridges_hair

foreveramum wrote: »

Thanks for the help everyone,

I had the mute sorted and tested the sound with music and it worked ok. Also another point which may help anyone to understand is that before I plugged the mic in I could hear my friend? Then when I plugged mine in she could hear me but i could not hear her?

Sorry for being a pain and will go through skype settings bit by bit but just wondered if it was something simple i had overlooked?

sounds like the ear pieces are broken then. Are you able to listen to music through the headphones?

aerostar

I suspect that your laptop , may have a mike on board, and that you plugged the microphone of the headset into the headphone socket instead of the mike socket, when you plug anything into the headphone socket it switches off the internal speakers, so by connecting the mike to the wrong socket you would have stopped the audio.

Usually headset and speaker connections are green, mike are usually pink. check the colours of the sockets and plugs.

Does your headset have two small plugs on, or is it a USB connector ?

Lokolo

aerostar wrote: »

I suspect that your laptop , may have a mike on board, and that you plugged the microphone of the headset into the headphone socket instead of the mike socket, when you plug anything into the headphone socket it switches off the internal speakers, so by connecting the mike to the wrong socket you would have stopped the audio.

Usually headset and speaker connections are green, mike are usually pink. check the colours of the sockets and plugs.

Does your headset have two small plugs on, or is it a USB connector ?

Surely the OP wouldn't be able to use the mic if that was the case?

aerostar

Lokolo wrote: »

Surely the OP wouldn't be able to use the mic if that was the case?

I said that

I suspect that your laptop , may have a mike on board

However it is also electronically possible, depending on the headset components, that if the headset and mike plugs were swapped, eg earphone into mike socket, that the earphones can operate as a mike, they both work in similar ways.

davester

whats make is the laptop?, mine has headphone , line out and mic sockets all the same type. The software means I can set any of the sockets to whatever I like not just what the logo on the sockets say.