Microphones not working on PC (tried multiple)

[Northstorm]

Hey folks!

My girlfriends nephew is having issues with his PC not taking any audio input from any device.

I've tried to remote into his pc to fix the issue but to no avail.

To clarify, his headsets mic used to work, but now, nothing does. (equalizer doesn't move no matter what mic he tries to use, and nothing goes through skype)

Things I've tried:
* I've tried to use his old headsets mic, and his new Blue Snowball.
* I've tried to uninstall drivers.
* Automatical driver install.
* Manual driver install.
/*(All of the above has been done through Device Manager for both 
"Audio inputs and outputs" as well as for "Sound, video and Game controllers"'*/

I've watched pretty much all the YT vids available on the sumbject and read
a bunch of articals, all of which says to do the same thing, but it does not work in
this case.
* I've messed around with the Default Format of both mics.
* I've made sure the right devices are set as default.
* Made sure that there were no "warnings" in Device Manager.
* Made sure the devices were not muted and were at 100% level.
* Tried with AGC on and off.

That's what I can remember trying at the time of writing.

Side note: when he rightclicks his volume icon task trey, there isn't a "Recording Devices" option, 
but it shows up just fin in the actual Sounds menu.

Bonus Side Note: Skype says "Can't access your sound card" but then again, windoes doesn't seem to be able
to either? Since "Listen to this Device" doesn't works either?

He's running Win10 (not sure what version) and he's using an AsRock Z77 Pro3 motherboard with an I5 2500k
and a GTX 680 (no added sound card).

I don't know what can be wrong at this point? Dead onboard sound card? But I don't understand why only the 
input end would be dead then? Output works just fine.

Any clues?

[Ezzy-525]

Just a quick one. Have you tried all of the inputs? As in all the USB ports (for the Blue Snowball) and both the case and mobo I/O's if it's a normal jack headphone?

[Northstorm]

Not all of them but he has tried multiple, and with his old headset, the output worked on all the usb ports he tried but mic never worked.

Again, the device shows up perfectly as it's supposed to, but the equalizer just always sits at zero.

Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately he doesn't have a 3.5mm Jack mic to try with, it's all usb based.

 

[Ezzy-525]

When you say you've tried drivers, do you mean for the headsets themselves or for the motherboard?

[Northstorm]

I've made sure he has the latest version of the Realtek drivers for his mobo.

I've also made sure to try and uninstall the drivers for both the headset and the Snowball through Device Manager, then tried Windows 10's "Automatic driver install" or whatever it's called, when that failed, I tried uninstalling again and installing them as more or less "Generic" audio devices (as that seems to be how most people fix thier issues with thier Snowballs)

But again non of that worked.

He has audio OUT of his headset as well as his bookshelf speakers, but he can't get audio IN to his pc, not the Headset and not the Snowball

[Northstorm]

Finally found the issue now that I had a chance to visit him.

So he is apparently in the Windows Insider program, and one of the updates he got, added something called "Microphone Privicy" to his settings menu in Windows, and when that is enabled, it mutes all audio input to the PC, but it doesn't appear in the sound settings to be muted, disabling Microphone Privicy fixed the issue.