I'm not sure if attempting to install the Creative XFi notebook sound card screwed up my drivers, or more likely if simply starting to use headphones has made me aware of an existing problem.

When I plug a headset--standard stereo headphones--into the headphone jack, I get full audio from the microphone, which picks up every creak of the palm rest and even the whirr of the hard drive.

This is even AFTER the Soundmax integrated microphone is DISABLED IN THE SOUND CONTROL PANEL and showing as disabled (with no green bars indicating no input from it). The Mic is still 100% live and putting audio into the headphones.

The OS is Vista Ultimate, fully patched except for SP1. Tonight I triedrolling back the driver, and then doing a web search/update to make sure the Soundmax internal audio is using the most current driver.

No joy.

So, before I even ask Lenovo support, can anyone give me a reality check here? Is my computer sick, or is this normal?

is there a way to mute the mic under the playback settings? (not the record settings)

No, doc. The mic has no controls via the PLAYBACK tab, just the RECORDING tab. Where it is totally disabled, as in "do not use in this profile".

But it still feeds audio into the speakers/headphones.

"DIE VAMPIRE DIE!" and all that good stuff.

This may be a dumb question and if so, I apologize, but did you reboot after disabling the mic? Sometimes rebooting helps with these things.

Not a dumb question at all, I should have said that yes, I had rebooted. Cold. Even tried rolling back and reinstalling the Soundmax (integrated) hardware driver.

No joy.

Really starting to wonder if the computer isn't trying to go to Atlanta for a few days.