recording problem

I have a Soyo 7VCA2 motherboard which has built-in sound card (AC97). I put a mic on the the mic in plug and it works instantly. I can hear my voice but i cant record it. I looked at Multimedia in the Control Panel and saw that the Recording Device was grayed over but it has a pull-down menu for the preferred device. The menu included VIA Wave and some other stuff. I tried all the options but I still cant record. I’m using Sound Recorder included in Win98SE BTW. If I try to record all I get is a hissing noise. I tried it in Yahoo Messenger’s voice chat but still it wont go. What do u guys think?