I have a question perhaps someone might be able to answer. I recently upgraded to a DH77DF (mini-ITX w/H77 chipset, 0104 BIOS) board, and I'm using a headset with separate mic/headphones plugs. They plug into the front panel inputs, which in turn, plug into the motherboard through the HD Audio input. When I plug in my headset, I specify "Headphones" to the prompt by the Realtek audio driver.
I have mic input, but I have to bump up the gain in Win7 to +30db (maximum) before I can be heard easily in a game (Starcraft). This is the same headset I used with my previous system board (and same game), and I didn't need to raise the gain at all.
So, do I need some type of powered headset or a USB headset to get better mic input? Is this related to "HD Audio", and that it simply doesn't work well with line-powered, cheap headsets?
