How to Fix Microphone Keeps Muting Itself on Windows 10

Nowadays many people encounter a problem related to the auto muting internal and external microphone. Although this issue prevails on Windows 10, the microphone may start malfunctioning on the older Microsoft products as well. Typically the microphone works fine for a long time, but the starts randomly muting it and going to zero levels.

Microphone issues occur rarely but they can be very annoying, especially if they are important for attending online interviews or online gaming session and webinars.

Method 1. Update device drivers

1. Right-click on Windows key and select Device Manager.
2. Expand Sound, video and game controllers and update all device drivers from that list.
3. For this purpose, right-click on driver and click Update Drivers.
4. Finally, reboot your PC.

Method 2. Modify microphone’s settings

1. Right-click on the speaker icon placed next to the taskbar (near date/time).
2. Select Recording Devices.
3. When the Sound control window opens, select the Communications tab.
4. When the question When Windows detects communication activity emerges, select Do nothing.
5. Then click Apply. After that, check your microphone if it stopped muting itself. If the problem did not stop, please do the following:
6. Open the Recording tab on the Sounds window again.
7. Right-click on the microphone and select Properties.

7. Click the Advanced tab on the new window.
8. Uncheck the Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device option.
9. Click Apply to save the changes.

Also See: Fix Discord Screen Share Audio not Working

Method 3. Change the format of the Microphone

1. Right-click on the speaker icon placed next to the taskbar (near date/time).
2. Select Recording Devices and double-click on the microphone that you are currently using.
3. Open the Advanced tab and select any of the 16-bit options on the list.

Method 3: Performing a Clean Boot

1. Log in to the computer with an Administrator account.
2. Press “Windows” + “R” to open up the “RUN” prompt.
3. Type in “MSConfig” and press “Enter“.
4. Click on the “Services” option and uncheck the “Hide all Microsoft Services” button. Click on the “Disable All” option and then on “OK“.
5. Click on the “Startup” tab and click on the “Open Task Manager” option.
6. Click on the “Startup” button in the task manager.
7. Click on any application in the list that has “Enabled” written next to it and select the “Disable” option.
8. Repeat this process for all applications in the list and restart your computer.
9. Now your computer has been booted in the “Clean Boot” state.
10. Use the computer in this state and check to see if the issue goes away.
11. If the issue goes away, repeat the above process and enable one service at a time.
12. Identify the service by enabling which the issue comes back and keep it disabled to fix the issue.