Windows XP Microphone volume drops unexpectedly / auto adjusts to low value

Windows XP Microphone volume drops unexpectedly / auto adjusts to low value

On windows XP I have just met a very strange behavior: The microphone volume drops unexpectedly to a very low value making online conversations impossible. My guess was that Skype was to blame here and, after searching the web, I found an interesting post which explained how to "clean" skype of this inadequate behavior.

Open Windows Explorer (sounds very bad

) and go to C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Skype and open the shared.xml file with a nice editor (Writer).

Then go to the <VoiceEng> xml tag that should look like this:

Code:

    <VoiceEng>
      <AGC>1</AGC>
      <MicVolume>5</MicVolume>
    </VoiceEng>

Change the first tag to 0 and the second one to 100 (or whatever you want) like below:

Code:

    <VoiceEng>
      <AGC>0</AGC>
      <MicVolume>100</MicVolume>
    </VoiceEng>

Note:
For Skype v 2.5:
255 is max volume and 0 = low. Range is 0 (off) to 255 (maxim)
255 could be much too high, so please reduce if necessary
For Skype 2.6/3:
100 is maxim volume and 0 = low. Range is 0 (off) to 100 maxim.

If the volume is too high, the sound will be dropped and clipped.
AGC setting to 0 will disable control of audio devices.

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