Thinkpads Forum

I have a X201 Tablet, running on a SSD with Windows 7 installed fresh.

Ever since Day 1, my built-in microphone has had poor sound recording quality. On Skype, people can barely hear me and report my sound as being "muffled" and "scratchy." When I try to record in a seminar setting, it is very hard to even hear what was being said.

I have the latest driver - Conexant 20585 SmartAudio HD, version 4.95.48.50.
I also have turned on the microphone recording volume to the highest.

This is very different to my X60 Tablet (running on Windows XP), where the microphone sound quality is superb.

I am unsure if this is a hardware problem or a Windows 7 problem. Anyone have any experience or thoughts that may help?

Thank you in advance.

If you have out-of-box setup then update audio driver, its widely reported that out-of-box driver "does not work" and I experienced the same on my 220 (non-tablet). (for ex see http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=826741)

If you already really have latest driver, open audio/video settings wizard with Fn-F6, go to ManageSettings and VOIPcallSettings. Try to change settings there manually, by default they should have set it to automated detection and all bells&whistles turned on. Im not too sure that echo cancellation and noise reduction logic in conexant driver would not produce funny audio artefacts running in parallel with skype's similar components, etc...
Note - while I have tried to turn all of these off, I can in general do conf calls fine, but sometimes in the passive playback for ex in YouTube music it feels as if the voice track is amplified and music supressed to background. Awkward. If anyone finds how this can be fixed - please let me know.

Latest conexant driver (for W7) that I see - as support download for my specific tablet - is tagged as Version: 8.32.23.0 Release Date: 2011/04/13
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 999(unsure if this link is right for you)

Note that under my W7 device manager this/same version driver is dated as 9.02.2011... and in the same bundle there is cx64ap40.dll with version number 4.80.40.0 - ie closer to one you named.