Enabling Audio Inputs in Windows 7

(for you attention-deficit types, here's the quick version: check the "Listen" box in your Sound --> Line In Properties --> Listen tab. For the full story, keep reading)

Here's the problem: ever since I built my new PC (my first with Windows 7), I couldn't hear anything that was plugged in through the "Line In" jack.

To make things worse, I could actually SEE audio coming through the inputs. The "Recording Devices" dialog box showed my Line In with a happy little green 'LED' meter blinking away. But still, utter silence from my speakers.

This is not an issue that would bother many PC users, but I happen to absolutely require audio inputs. Not only do I make music (using old-fashioned gizmos like guitars, analog synthesizers, and microphones), but I also like to be able to transfer vinyl and even cassette recordings from time to time.

My first suspect was the "High Definition Audio" part of the equation. I knew that all of my sources were analog rather than digital, and I assumed High Definition meant digital. So I wasted time trying to install AC97 drivers, and disabling the HD ones.

Of course, it didn't help...but what it DID do was remove the happy blinking "Line In" element from my Recording Devices, so I was actually farther away from a solution than when I started. One Restore Point later, I had the LED back but still no sound.

I won't bore you with all of the little tweaks that I tried (in the BIOS and the OS), but nothing brought any joy.

However, I did get a big clue when I plugged in my headphones to the front-panel headphone jack...at first, no sound, but when I selected headphones as the output preference in WinAmp, I was treated to heavenly music (well, Cradle of Filth...the exact opposite of heavenly music, really). And the headphones were listed as a High Definition device, so my alarm bells went off.

Hmm, the HD Line In reacts to audio (happy green LED) and the HD Headphone jack works fine with my beat-up old Grados (the best headphones in the world, BTW, for less than a hundred bucks). Maybe this HD audio thing is just a red herring?

Yup. HD audio is simply a specification developed by Intel, it has nothing to do with digital vs. analog sources. I'd been barking up the wrong tree the whole time. But that knowledge alone didn't solve my problem...

What finally solved my problem was a combination of desperate experimentation and re-interpreting Microsoft's 'helpful' instructions.

When you open up the Properties dialog from the Sound --> Recording --> Line In dialog, you'll see four tabs: General, Listen, Levels, and Advanced. The message reads "You can listen to a portable music player or other device through this Line In jack."

Now, I can think myself right out of a good thing. I interpreted this to mean that you could reassign the Line In to serve as an output if necessary. Not being a portable music player guy since the days of the Sony Walkman, I just skipped that section entirely.

Too bad, because the answer was as simple as checking the "Listen to this device" box. Voila! I had sound coming through the Line In jack, ready to hear and record.

Yep, it was more or less staring me in the face the whole time -- I must have passed by that section a dozen times while trying to get the audio to work correctly. Okay, I can complain just a little -- why would this option be disabled by default, and why would it be buried and rather (to me, anyway) confusingly described?

But all-in-all, the solution was really easy. So easy that I felt silly about spending an entire morning combing message boards and installing/uninstalling device drivers. In my defense, I just kept reading complaints from others with more or less the same setup and results, and it seemed like a bigger problem.

Hopefully this post will help at least a few other dumbasses like me who need to be reminded to start with the small things!