Support Article - Headphone Microphone Problems

When you plug your headset in you can hear but not use your Mic or one or both are very muffled.

This is because most gaming headsets use a 3 ring audio jack. But PC's still use separate 2 ring sockets for inputs.

One ring is Mono, which you will rarely see these days except on musical instrument jacks

Two rings are for Stereo 

Three rings are for Stereo and a Microphone

The sockets on gaming PCs usually only accept 2 ring Jacks

So you will need an adaptor/splitter such as the one pictured below to use your headset

This needs to be female to 2 male jacks 

In some cases you will have an adaptor, forgotten about,  in the packaging for your headset/headphones. If not they are readily available online 

Or you can purchase a USB audio adaptor to plug your headphones into, or headphones that plug in via USB

In some cases the USB option will also give you superior 3d audio processing. 

Also if your speakers, headphones or other peripherals use Bluetooth to connect you will need to purchase and use a USB Bluetooth  adaptor to connect them.