I've got the Dell Inspiron laptop as well DM, and the booklet tells me the mike is on each side of the webcam (see 1 and 4 in the picture, unless I'm dumb!)!

Don't ask me how to work it 'cos I haven't workd that out yet, but there's a built in mike on my desktop as well.

Here you are DM. I copied the page from my Dell Inspiron instruction book.


Also....to stop Skype alarming. Make sure you have it set to "Offline".

maybe this will help??

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...E&doclang=en#2

I think if you go into your computers control panel and look under the sounds and audio = with the video, audio settings you should see voice or recording??

What is the number of your dell ?

I don't know about you DM, but my Dell laptop is a 1525.....but......all this Skype stuff has me pulling out my hair in frustration right now!

I've decided to put it the "too hard basket" for now.... but I'll probably have another try when I have less things on my mind.

Thank you everyone for trying to help.

I was thinking that might be a good idea for now too, but didn't want to say it until you did. Different people seem to have different limits, but frankly I (personally) would be feeling totally overwhelmed with it all by now.

Jo~ My Dell is an Inspiron 6000. I don't have the mike or camera indicators that show on Anne's pic in her post. My DS ordered my laptop for me a few yrs ago and I don't think I have a built in mike where indicated.

I'm w/you Anne~ I'm giving up on it for now. There isn't any frustration left in me to fight w/my pc right now. This is a great forum though, and I need to visit it more, if not just to read. I'm such a pc illiterate.

Thanks all~~~~~

Mic /sound -
I'm not completely sure but a headphone set with a mic might have a better sound quality than the built in mic for using skype or other phone type programs.
might be easier to set up too.


That doesn't help Anne with her loosing connection problems.
skype uses the internet as the "phone line" so something has to be conflicting in the set up or the firewall settings.
when you are ready to try again let us know..

The only other thing I can think of is to totally remove the whole program, and use a reg cleaner to get any traces of it out of your registry, restart computer and then try a fresh skype install and go from there...
skype connection info-
http://support.skype.com/en_US/categ...NECTION_ISSUES


There are a few other similar programs that might work..

here's one than uses no downloads just make the call trhu the website page - there are some free{limited} and a rates /pricing page for calls but I don't know how the rates compare with your regular phone rates.{long distance etc}
http://evaphone.com/services

misc - other info & sites -
http://www.voipnow.org/2007/04/want_free_voip_.html
http://www.nimbuzz.com/en/desktop/
http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/comm/fwvoice.html
http://www.tuitalk.com/free-phone-ca...al-calls.zhtml
http://www.cnet.com/topic-software/p...l?tag=lia;lcol

probably info overload - I know my eyes are crossed now LOL

One of the lists had the Google talk }so I'll install it and see how it looks when i have time.

Thanks Jo, and thank you Lara as well.

I will take a break for now, but it's good to now these suggestions are here for me to log back into when I'm ready to try again.

There's just too much going through my head for now.......