Fix: Razer Kraken Mic not Working

The Kraken headset is one of the flagship headsets produced by the gaming industry giant Razer. It is big and when we talk big, we mean around 27 centimeters when they are work. It has a virtual surround system embedded as well as superior sound quality. It is one of the most popular headsets in the market right now.

Despite being so popular and top-notch, Kraken is now facing a mic problem for quite a while now. Numerous users report that they are unable to speak in-game as well as in other applications such as Skype. One prominent gaming platform where this problem is being experienced is Steam. There are a number of different reasons why this behavior might come into play; incorrect drivers might be installed or you might not have selected Kraken as your default audio device. Unity has officially acknowledged this problem and is working on a fix. Until then, feel free to try our solutions.

Solution 1: Rolling back Realtek High Definition Audio

Realtek is known to provide audio solutions to major computer manufacturers and is renowned for providing great audio devices. However, there are many cases reported where the latest drivers of the audio device rendered Kraken mic unusable. In this case, we can try rolling back the driver and see if this does the trick for us.

1. Press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
2. Once in the device manager, expand “Audio inputs and outputs” category and click on Realtek Digitial Output and select“Properties”.

3. Once the properties are opened, click on the “Driver” tab and select Roll Back Driver if it is visible. If it is, it means that the driver was updated and it may be because of this the mic is not working. If it isn’t greyed out, you can download another version from the internet and click on Update driver and attempt to update manually.

4. After updating the driver, restart your computer and check if the problem got solved.
5.  If this method doesn’t work, you can navigate to the same category in device manager, right-click on your Kraken headset and select “Uninstall”. This will uninstall the headphones completely from your system. Now disconnect the headphones and plug them back in and reinstall the drivers.

Solution 2: Uninstall all Razer related Software

There are numerous cases where software released by the manufacturer itself conflicts with the product. This usually happens after an update to Windows is installed on the computer. What we can do is try uninstalling the software and see if this does any trick.

1. Press Windows + R, type “appwiz.cpl” in the dialogue box and press Enter. Here all the applications installed on your computer will be listed. Right-click on all Razer software and uninstall them one by one.

After uninstalling all software, restart your computer and check if the problem at hand got solved. One particular software that was known to cause problems is called “Razer Synapse”.

Solution 3: Checking if correct Mic is active

If both the above methods don’t work, it probably means the correct mic is not selected as the current mic device on your computer. If there are multiple mics available, the operating system might select another mic as the default. You can check the properties of the headset and make sure they are set correctly.

1. Right-click on the “sound” icon present at your taskbar and select “Properties”.
2. Now select the “recording” tab. Here all the recording devices on your computer will be listed. Select Razer Kraken from the list of options, right-click it and set it as the default device. Now disable all the other microphones from your computer.

3. Press Apply to save changes. Now right-click on the microphone and select “Properties”.
4. Navigate to the Advanced tab and select the lowest default format available. It will probably be “2 channel, 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality)”.

5. After making all the changes, restart your computer, reconnect the headsets and check if the problem at hand got solved.

Solution 4: Running the application in an elevated mode

It is not new to know that Window’s user access control has its share of bugs and glitches. Before you start diagnosing hardware problems, it is wise to try running the application in administrator mode. This way the application will have access to all the hardware connected.

1. Navigate to the directory of the application. In the case of steam, the directory might look something like the following.
   “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Comedy Night”
2. Now click on the Compatibility tab and check the line Run this program as an administrator.

3. Press Apply to save changes and exit. Restart your computer, re-plug your headphones and see if you can access the mic.

Solution 5: Checking Ports and Hardware

Now if all the above solutions failed, it probably means that there is a hardware fault, A hardware fault not only covers your ports but also includes your Mic’s jacks. You can play around by plugging the jack to some other audio ports. Also, you should make sure that the jack is in working condition.

You can also remove the USB part and replace it with a cord that has audio jacks. This will ensure that all the hardware is working as expected and there are no problems involved.

Solution 6: Selecting Appropriate Microphone in Realtek Audio Manager

In some cases, the Microphone might not be properly selected in the Realtek Audio Manager. Therefore, in this step, we will be selecting it as the microphone. For that:

1. Open up the Realtek Audio Manager and click on the “Microphone” tab.

   

2. Here, click on the dropdown and select your Microphone from the list.
3. Save your changes and check to see if the issue persists.

You should also open the application’s settings and see if the correct mic is selected there. In addition to that, you can try to connect the Headphones without a splitter to check if that fixes the issue.