Microphone volume disabled

[lanmat]

Hello,
I just built a computer with a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 motherboard, and everything's gone fine (got an elcheapo e2160 oc'd to 3GHz to hold me out until Penryn desktop procs), except all the input audio devices into the ALC889a onboard HD audio show up disabled. And not just "muted", I mean the volume sliders are grayed out (attached) and the mic doesn't work. Output isn't affected (speakers work just fine).

Anyone ever seen this before? Un/re-install of audio drivers doesn't seem to help the problem, and it doesn't change regardless of whether I use the rear or front panel inputs. I know the driver's registering the device since the Gigabyte/Realtek control panel pops up when the mic gets plugged in, showing the correct panel jack that was used now has a device plugged in (also attached).

 

[Tmagic650]

You must have the motherboard audio header misconfigured. Are the Audio header jumpers in the proper positions? Sometimes the case audio plugs don't properly match the motherboard's audio header

 

[lanmat]

You'd think even if the front panel headset/mic header was misconfigured, that at the very least, the back panel connections would work. And the connector has a white plug on pin 8 where the header has no pin (which is correct per the manual). Plus, why would the drivers detect a device being plugged in if the header wasn't wired correctly?

P.S. - This is Gigabytes most unhelpful reply to my query:

Unfortunately only the volume control is selectable the other will be ghey out due to hardware limitation.

Have no idea what that means. Hardware limitation? You'd think an onboard HD audio chip would be able to correctly route the inputs on the backpanel out of the box.

 

[lanmat]

ah ha!

Ok, for anyone else being bewildered by this, I figured it out. I thought the mic wasn't working since the mic volume was grayed out and my friends couldn't hear me in skype. But then I recorded a sound in Soundforge and it was barely audible, but there. So I checked back and realized on both the Gigabyte/Realtek control panel and the windows input mixer, that there was one "master" volume, which just plainly controls the volume of the selected input. There's another place (can't remember right now) where you can select the line in or mic volume as the source, or a combination of both. Anyways, jacked that up to max and now it works just fine. But very weird way of doing things.