Fix: Astro A40 Mic not working

Astro A40 is a professional headset used by gamers and broadcasters all around the world. It has support for multiple platforms including PS4, Mac, and PCs. It can easily adapt to any environment and includes a precision mic. There are also mod kits available which are used to isolate noise in various tournaments.

There is an ongoing mic issue going on with the headset for quite a while now. There are several reports by the users where either mic doesn’t work or puts a lot of background noise in the sound. Take a look at the workarounds listed below.

Solution 1: Making sure that the cable is inserted properly

There is known a problem with Astra A40 headset where the cable doesn’t go properly inside the jack present in the headset. This is a manufacturing problem and is common in all the headsets throughout the world. What you can do is make sure that the cable is fully plugged inside the jack. All the rings are inside and there is no space left as seen in the picture below. If you have inserted the cable fully and still cannot hear the mic, move on to the next workaround.

Solution 2: Plugging to the backside of the PC

The USB slot or the port into which you are plugging the cable might not be working as expected. It is not out of the blue if some USB slots or ports don’t support the cable while some of them do. Test the cable on other USB slots. If you own a PC, try plugging the receiver to the slots present at the back side of the PC. In case of a laptop, try plugging in all USB slots present on both sides of the computer.

Check the type of USB slots you are plugging the receiver into (2.0 or 3.0). If you are inserting the headset to a USB 3.0 or in front of the PC, try other ports. Once you have exhausted and checked all options and still the headset doesn’t work, move on to the next ones.

Solution 3: Setting as Default Device

We can try checking your device manually to troubleshoot any problem. Follow these steps carefully and look for any references to other made in this solution.

1. Right-click on the speaker icon present in the bottom-right corner of your screen and click on ‘Recording Devices”.

2. A list of all the recording devices connected to your computer will appear. Try speaking into your microphone, and see if there any green bars rising next to one of them while you talk (as in the screenshot).

3. If you don’t see any green bars skip to step 5 directly.
4. However, if you do see green bars when you talk into the microphone, but it still doesn’t work in some program, then it means that the mic isn’t correctly configured in Windows. It is possible that the program is listening to the wrong recording device. Try changing your program’s settings.
5. Check if you can determine which one of the devices in the list is your  If you identify it, click on it to highlight it, and then click on Set Default button present at the bottom of the screen.
6. Check again if you see green bars rising when you talk into the microphone. If you do, your mic is now correctly set up. If not, continue to next step.
7. Double-click on the device that represents your microphone. A new window will pop up consisting of the Microphone Properties. Select the Levels tab present at the top of the screen.
8. In the levels tab, drag the slider all the way to the right, until the number on the right says “100”.

9. Click OK and save changes.
10. Now check again if you see green bars rising when you talk into the microphone: if you do, your mic is now properly configured.
11. If you still don’t see any bars, and you’re not 100% sure which one of the devices is the relevant one, try following steps 5-10 for every device on the list.
12. If you still don’t see any green bars, left-click inside the Recording tab and make sure that “Show Disabled Devices” is checked. If not, click on it so it checked. This way we will be able to see all the disabled devices.

13. This might add extra devices to the list. Perform steps 5-10 on those devices too until you see the green bars when talking into the mic.

Solution 4: Tweaking from the Application

Another thing you can try before moving on to hardware alternatives is to check if the settings in the Astro application are set correctly. Also, if you have a pending update regarding the firmware, make sure you update it as soon as possible. Updates are rolled out all the time to target bug fixes and various other glitches.

1. Launch the Astro Application and click on the Microphone tab.
2. Make sure that the USB Mic Level is set to the maximum value by moving the slider to the very right.

3. After making the changes, exit and check if you can use your microphone correctly.

If the problem still persists, make sure that you have the latest firmware and software installed. You can easily download these using the official website.

Solution 5: Buying a USB Stereo Adapter

There are several laptops who don’t have two separate ports. One for headphone input and one for the mic output. Even if this is not the case, your audio jack might not be working as expected. A simple solution is to buy a USB stereo adapter for your device. You can plug in both the audio and the mic jack into the adapter and plug the adapter into the USB port. You can easily buy this for $10 or so.