I bought a refurbished IQ504 through Tiger Direct three weeks ago. All is well so far except for the microphone array (using SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio). The sound, when playing back something that has been recorded, is extremely low. Even if I record from two inches away from the array the sound, when listening via Windows Media Player, is low ... I would rate the volume a 2 of 10 even though I have the microphone setting at 100 and the WMP volume set at the max. I have tried all Microphone Enhancements provided.

Speaker tests are fine and the volume when playing DVDs and CDs is fine. I have looked at the HP documentation and done as instructed. There is not a new driver to be installed. Control Panel shows the driver version as 6.10.2.5750 and the driver date as 2/15/2008.

On top of that, I can't figure out how to set up a 'regular' microphone. Even though I plug it into the line-in jack on the front panel and set line-in as default, the OS (Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP1) doesn't seem to recognize it. On the Recording tab on the Sound window accessed from Control Panel, the first bar for the Microphone Array stays green and none of the bars for the Line-In turns to green when line-in is selected as the default.

Obviously, I am kinda concerned/frustrated. I just want to have a microphone here, regardless of whether it is the integrated array or a detachable.