If you use a Windows 11/10 computer to avidly communicate with other people, you may have been notified by your peers about fluctuations in your Microphone sound levels despite you not interfering with them, and fluctuating microphone audio levels may not suit everyone. You can lock the microphone volume and stop this automatic adjustment.
Stop automatic adjustment of Microphone in Windows 11/10
In this post, we will be showing you how you can restrict Windows from automatically resetting or adjusting the audio levels of your microphone.
- Run the Audio Troubleshooter
- Run Speech troubleshooter
- How to lock microphone volume
- Modify your sound settings
- Check for malware on your computer
- Troubleshoot in Clean Boot State
1] Run the Audio Troubleshooter
You’re suggested to run the Audio Troubleshooter before going ahead with any of the workarounds. In order to do so, you have to open your Windows settings and visit the ‘Update and Security’ page.
Here, go to Troubleshoot, click Additional Troubleshooter under Get up and running look for Playing Audio. Clicking on that will give you an option to run the Troubleshooter. Do so and check if the issue has been resolved. You should also try plugging your microphone on and off, or plugging it into a different port.
2] Run Speech troubleshooter
On most occasions, Windows 10 will automatically detect and resolve the problem that persists with the microphone. All you must do is run the Speech troubleshooter from the Troubleshooters page.
3] How to lock microphone volume
Right-click on the speaker icon available in the System Tray and from the context menu that shows up, click on Sound.
Click on Recording and double-tap on the microphone that is in use to open its properties. From the tabs on top, click on Advanced and uncheck the box that says ‘Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device‘.
Check if the issue still persists after applying these changes and exiting the box.
Related: Volume keeps muting automatically
4] Modify your sound settings
There are several settings that may be triggering fluctuating microphone levels on your computer, so you can try disabling them to rid yourself of this problem.
Open the Sound properties box again from the Speaker icon on the System Tray and click on communications.
Here, under ‘When Windows detects communication activity,’ check ‘Do Nothing‘.
Open the properties box of your microphone again and under Levels, adjust the microphone level to be at least 75.
From the tabs on top, click on Enhancement and enable the ‘Disable all sound effects‘ feature.
Also, make sure that you’ve un-checked the ‘Acoustic echo cancellation‘.
Similar: Microphone keeps resetting to 0 or 100 volume.
5] Check for Malware on your computer
It is important to make sure that your computer isn’t being plagued by malware, which is eventually causing you all this trouble with your microphone. You can make sure that that’s not the case by running a Malware scan.
In order to get things started, open your Windows Settings by pressing the Windows and ‘I’ keys together and go to Update and Security. From the options on the left-side pane, click on Windows Security and select ‘Virus and Threat protection’ under Protection Areas. This will open a separate Windows security window, where you have to click on Scan options under Quick scan.
From the Scan options, select Full scan and initiate the process by clicking on Scan Now. Wait for the scan to complete and hopefully, the issue would be resolved at your end.
6] Troubleshoot in Clean Boot state
It is possible that this issue is being caused by a third-party app that has administrator privileges, without us knowing. You can try performing a clean boot to ensure if it’s a third-party app that is at play here. Before you begin with the process, it is important that you are logged into Windows with an account that has administrative privileges.
Open the Run command and in the empty space type ‘msconfig.’ In the system configurations window, you’ll find a couple of tabs on top. Select the services tab. First things first, check the box that says ‘Hide all Microsoft services.’ This will help you cut back on the services displayed. Click on Disable all on the bottom-right, which will stop any third-party services from running the next time you boot your system. Apply these changes and then visit the Startup tab right next to Services.
The only option here says Open Task Manager, clicking on which will take you to Task Manager’s Startup tab. Here, individually select and disable each service to stop it from running at the next startup.
Once you’re done disabling all the processes, restart your computer to troubleshoot it in a clean boot state.
You need to enable one Service after another and reboot into Clean Boot, till the problem reappears.
In this way, you will be able to identify the process that is causing problems.
Related: Microphone not working in Windows 10.
