1. My friend can't hear me talking. How do I check if my microphone is working?

When you are in a call, find the little down arrow beside the call time near the bottom of the call window. Choose Sound Settings...

Find the green volume indicator under Microphone and make some noise. If it lights up and moves, your mic is working fine. Adjust the volume of the microphone by dragging the speaker slider left or right.

If the indicator doesn't move or light up, try choosing another device from the Speakers dropdown list. If you still can't make yourself heard, repeat this for all the devices.

If this doesn’t help check if your microphone is connected and turned on: and if this still doesn't help, visit Learn More about setting up your audio equipment to get the guidelines on how to connect a microphone to a PC.

2. I don't hear anything. What's wrong?

Please make sure you have a microphone and speaker connected to your computer and that they are working properly.

You can easily test them by making a Skype call to Echo123 which will help you through the process.

You can find more information in the Sound and Voice guide.

Also have a look at our Call quality troubleshooter for more help with common sound setup issues.

3. What can I do when I experience poor sound quality?

There are several steps which may improve the quality of your Skype calls. Also if you experience audio problems with someone else on Skype we suggest you let them know about the suggestions below.

First, make sure you are using the most recent version of Skype as we are continually improving quality in each version.

Make sure all your computer's drivers are up-to-date (sound, video, motherboard controllers etc - please contact the manufacturers of your hardware for updated drivers).

Also make sure your firewall/router is not blocking Skype in any way. Try opening UDP traffic both ways to both the port found in Skype's "Connection" window in Tools > Options and also