Rear Audio Jack not detecting my microphone

[PCNewbie]

Hello, I'm a little late to the party but hear me out. I've been using this headset for a good long time with no problems until recently, the front audio ports for both the microphone and headset broke when someone managed to step on the cord. I moved the pins to the back of my tower and I can hear through the headset just fine, but the rear microphone jack (pink) won't detect my microphone! I don't need drivers for it since it's just the two pins for speakers and mic, the headset works just fine on other PCs around the house, I've been digging in my Recording Devices and other such windows for an hour to no avail. Please help!

Here's my specs:
(Using Speccy)

Operating System
Windows 8.1 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 4690K @ 3.50GHz 21 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASRock Z97 Extreme4 (CPUSocket) 25 °C
Graphics
C32F391 (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 (PNY) 27 °C
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER162 (SATA) 25 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSC0
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

 

[fireberd]

The first thing I see is you do not have the correct sound hardware driver, only the generic, basic function, Windows Installed High Definition Audio. Get the correct driver from ASRock as the first step.

After you get the correct sound driver installed, you can check and if it still does not work, check the Sound Panel, recording section to see if the mic is enabled. Generally, Stereo Mix should be set as default recording device and then whatever is plugged in, such as a mic will work.

 

[PCNewbie]

Thanks, getting the right driver was the step in the right direction. Unfortunately, even with the right driver installed, my PC still isn't receiving my microphone. I don't get the little "A device was inserted into the microphone port" message like I do when I put the audio jack into the headphone port, even after setting Stereo Mix as the default device. With some digging, I saw that sometimes plugging a mic into the front microphone port will disable the back one. Could that be the problem? If so, how do I do that? Is there a way to tell (without opening up my case) that the microphone port is even connected to the motherboard?

 

[fireberd]

Since "someone stepped on the cord" it could be the front panel jack is broken and sending a signal to the sound so the rear is disabled. The only way to find out is to open the case and disconnect the front panel audio connection (connector) that is plugged into the jack on the motherboard. I didn't look at your specific motherboard but the audio jack is usually on the lower left of the motherboard. The connector could be labeled "HD Audio" (Preferred) or "AC 97".

 

[erpster4]

the ASRock board OP is using has Realtek ALC1150 Audio Codec as noted on the ASRock web site.

if the front panel audio & mic jacks no longer work correctly, they may need to be replaced.
see this topic from the Tom's Guide site on how to do this.