Most sound cards provide the ability to receive sound input from a microphone through the sound card microphone port. This is useful for recording voice or sounds to your computer.

1. Check Your Hardware: If your microphone has never worked, or it stopped working, first check the physical connection of the microphone. Verify that it is firmly plugged into the microphone port instead of the headphone or speaker port. If you are not sure which port is correct, you can check the sound card to see if it is marked (sometimes with a picture of a microphone), you can use a process of elimination, check the documentation that came with your hardware, or contact the hardware manufacturer.

2. Choose the format you want to get and set its parameters. Then select the output directory for your output file.

3. On the 'Recording Source' panel, select the microphone device, adjust the recording volume for the lowest possible performance. You might see other devices, such as CD-Player or Synthesizer (MIDI), in the recording panel, uncheck all non-essential devices, this cuts down background noise.

4. Click 'Record' button, and then speak into the microphone. If the microphone is plugged into the correct jack, the wave patterns on the display should move up and down. If it does not move, sound is not making it through your microphone. If the wave does move, press 'Stop' button, and then press 'Play' button to listen to your recording. The recording is the destination sound file you selected.