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Mic issue on boot camp: Sounds very deep like darth vader

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dudeitsjay

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 26, 2009
197
0
Windows XP 32bit Bootcamp
Snow Leopard OSX and used the bootcamp drivers from the snow leopard dvd.
2.66ghz Macbook pro 15'' Sept 2009

Just bought this macbook brand new today and installed bootcamp and tried running ventrilo, only to find that people thought I was darth vader or jigsaw from the Saw series. I went into the audio properties from control panel and tested the hardware and such, and surely enough the mic comes out back to me like I'm darth vader. REALLY low (deep voice, not low volume) and really hard to discern what I'm saying. It's not just a ventrilo problem. Though, I haven't checked to see if my mic is faulty, as I've yet to use the mic on the Leopard osx partition.

Anyone have this issue before?

I've had my share of macbooks over this summer and never had an issue like this. The only difference I notice from the rest of the macbooks is that this 15'' with the problem is using Cirrus Logic HD Audio for the input and output (mic).

Any help would be awesome!
 
This is (little) known problem with the mid-2009 MacBook Pros. The Apple provided Windows drivers (from either Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6) don't work properly with sound and mic.

There are several long Apple Support Forum threads concerning it:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2037093&tstart=0
(This one's titled "Very Poor Volume Output - Windows XP" but the Mic and Sound issues are related)

If you're experiencing the sound problem, there's a patched version of the drivers out there. There's no current fix for the mic, aside from using a USB mic or headset.

If you read through the linked thread, people have reported it to Apple support and there's no word on when a fix will be coming out. The support staff did say, though, that the more people who report the issue, the higher the priority will be for the fix.
 
Yeah thats unfortunate. My macbook pro 17'' 2.8ghz/500hd newest one worked fine. My macbook pro 13'' 2.53ghz newest one worked fine, my macbook air rev b worked fine, and my macbook pro 15'' late 2008 unibody worked fine. This new macbook pro 15'' 2.66ghz with the builtin battery has been the only one with this problem and the only difference is the Cirrus HD Audio.

I've used the latest fixes that are for bootcamp from the snow leopard osx dvd. Even tried backing to the regular leopard osx dvd. Neither work. sadly, 1 usb is taken for my cooling pad, and the 2nd used for my logitech mouse. Looks like I'll need an expansion and a usb mic...
 
dudeitsjay said:
Yeah thats unfortunate. My macbook pro 17'' 2.8ghz/500hd newest one worked fine. My macbook pro 13'' 2.53ghz newest one worked fine, my macbook air rev b worked fine, and my macbook pro 15'' late 2008 unibody worked fine. This new macbook pro 15'' 2.66ghz with the builtin battery has been the only one with this problem and the only difference is the Cirrus HD Audio.

I've used the latest fixes that are for bootcamp from the snow leopard osx dvd. Even tried backing to the regular leopard osx dvd. Neither work. sadly, 1 usb is taken for my cooling pad, and the 2nd used for my logitech mouse. Looks like I'll need an expansion and a usb mic...
Click to expand...

You have a 13" MacBook Pro with a working mic under Windows? My 2.26Ghz one doesn't work under Windows XP.
 
Oh, I misunderstood. Those were the patched drivers I referred to initially. They fix the sound, just not the mic.

For those having problems, please consider sending Apple feedback (bug report): http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

The more people who complain, the higher the priority this problem will be given.
 
hah. Just wanted to update on something weird that happened yesterday.

I was playing Heroes of Newerth (on xp 32bit) which has a builtin voip set to the cirrus board output. I just talked on it and people heard me clearly and normally. Then I switched into ventrilo (With HoN still on) and it worked perfectly as well! About an hour afterwards, when I left my computer to idle, I come back, with heroes of newerth long closed, and now my ventrilo still sounds low and wrong. Weird huh? I haven't given it another run to replicate the anomaly, but will do when i get the chance.
 
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