Dell XPS 15 doesn't see an external microphone

Right click on the sound icon on the bottom right of the screen (on the taskbar). Click open sound settings. The new window will appear, scroll down to the bottom and click "More sound settings" it has a box with an arrow on the right side of the button. A new smaller window should appear. Send a screenshot of the playback tab and recording tab. (output and input)

Unless, as I said, I uninstall Audio Realtek High Definition from my laptop. Then an external microphone will appear, but in the playback tab, instead of the recording tab. And I don't know how then to change it, as without Audio Realtek High Definition installed, the Waves MaxxAudioPro will not work at all.

It doesn't see the microphone plugged in. Only the default laptop speaker and microphone are there - no change when plugging in or out the external microphone.

I would uninstall all sound drivers for your system (restart the PC). Have the microphone unplugged. Then use either Dell SupportAssist or Dell Update to pull back in the appropriate drivers and see if that fixes anything.

Thank you. I did it before, but just to be sure, I did it once more. I uninstalled all sound drivers, restarted my laptop, and used Dell SupportAssist to install the newest drivers dedicated to my laptop (with a specific Service Tag). But the problem is still there.

Sorry to sound like a broken record but I do want to confirm you had all audio devices unplugged for the whole time you were uninstalling and reinstalling these drivers, correct? And I should've asked you this earlier but is there any chance you have a restore point from when the audio was working? Either a Windows restore point or Dell restore point?

If your external mike is on the headset, shouldn't you pick "headset" for the external microphone to work.  Picture shows you set it on headphone.

If your external mike is a separate, unplug your earbud and plug in the mike while system is running, option to select mike should be avail in the pop up.

If Maxx Audio fail to pop up, remove the Realtek audio driver from device manager (tick the box to remove software as well).  Restart your machine (a must), give the system a couple of minutes, it will install both the driver and software automatically.  

To update audio driver, download the latest from Dell, extract it to your desktop.  Select high definition audio driver from device manager to manually update pointing to the extracted audio driver.

Thank you. I confirm that all audio devices were unplugged for the whole time I was installing and reinstalling these drivers. Just to make sure we are on the same page, the audio (speakers) are working fine,  just the external microphone, when plugged via Mini jack is not. My laptop does not see it at all. Unless I uninstall Audio Realtek High Definition from my laptop. Then It sees it as "headset", but as I have one Mini jack port on my laptop and I cannot change manually what is plugged in, and as a result, the mic does not work.

Unfortunately, I can not say exactly what causes the problem. It was working (pop-up window appeared) just before I installed all the newest drivers dedicated to my laptop from Dell website (recommended by Dell Support Assist) and updated the newest windows updates (if that matters, I use Windows 11). Then it stopped.

Thank you Chino de Orgo. I am afraid it did not solve the problem.

If your external mike is on the headset, shouldn't you pick "headset" for the external microphone to work.  Picture shows you set it on headphone.

My external mic is not on the headset It is the RØDE Lavalier GO mic. As mentioned before, the problem is I cannot set what is plugged in. No pop-up window appears. When Audio Realtek High Definition driver, it does not recognize that anything is inserted into the Mini-jack port. If I uninstall Audio Realtek High Definition, it recognises automatically the plugged-in mic as a „headset” and there is no way to change it.

If your external mike is a separate, unplug your earbud and plug in the mike while system is running, option to select mike should be avail in the pop up.

As I described above, the problem is it is not a pop-up window appearing, since I updated the divers.

If Maxx Audio fail to pop up, remove the Realtek audio driver from device manager (tick the box to remove software as well).  Restart your machine (a must), give the system a couple of minutes, it will install both the driver and software automatically. To update audio driver, download the latest from Dell, extract it to your desktop.  Select high definition audio driver from device manager to manually update pointing to the extracted audio driver.

I did it before, but to be sure, I did it once again.

So I removed the Realtek audio driver from the device manager.

I restarted my machine and downloaded the latest from Dell and extracted it to your desktop. Both, Realtek HD and Waves Maxx Audio Pro.

I selected high definition audio driver from the device manager to manually update pointing to the extracted audio drivers (for both, speaker and microphone).

Then the information pop-up that this driver, which is the newest one has been already installed, so it can not be installed again.

As it did not solve the problem, I reinstalled also Waves Maxx Audio Pro, but it also did not change a thing. Then I installed the newest windows updates (even though the last time I installed them was only a few days ago), but the same story – no help. The mic is still not recognized and no pop-up window appears when plugged in.

For now, I can only think about reinstalling my all Windows Operating System as a potential remedy. But it is quite radical, so if you have any other suggestions, please share them with me.

Most of audio issue related posts in here were resolved.  Many times, just simply unplug the device for a few seconds and plug it back in, select a proper input device in the popup and the issue got resolved.  However, many users had attempted with all kind of different settings and changes are made before posting the issue here.

Therefore, I could only go over the general steps and let the OP decide which step is applicable change to make.  Remember that your system audio will also work with just Microsoft basic driver.  I think that it can be resolved without the need of Windows reinstallation.  It wouldn't hurt to  try with reinstalling driver again using the steps I provided here.

Thank you once more. I was reading many forums and watched youtube tutorials to help my problem before posting here. It looks like I face more complicated software issues than in most cases, so I thought it is worth sharing it and looking together for some alternative way of solving it, than the general steps. In my case, the built-in speakers and microphone work great, both with Audio Realtek High Definition or just Microsoft's basic driver. Also, when plug-in in the headset with a build-in microphone via a USB port, it works great (including microphone). So the problem is only when I try to plug in an external mic via the Mini-jack port. Then, as described, it does not see it when Audio Realtek High Definition is installed, and when just Microsoft's basic driver is installed, it sees it, but as a headset without a microphone. I reinstalled the drivers already 8 times during the last two weeks. Every time follow all the instructions, as listed by you. With each time, I was hoping maybe for some reason now it will work. But it didn't.

Hi DZD7,Have you tried another headset like Logitech?

Also you said you updated BIOS, have you check BIOS to see if there is anything changed there?

For Audio issues, I would disagree with Chino 's opinion. We have hundreds of Dell laptops, and we constantly runs into Audio issues like no mic detected after windows updating, and we have to reinstall audio drivers. I would say reinstalling audio driver is very common for those kinds of issues.