microphone follow on

i have tryd both suggestions,all settings are as suggested,the mike works in a different pc,it came with a bacth of 20 pcs and it seems to have no problem working with them they are oem type systems and proprietry,when i test the mic in powerpoint on my laptop by recording a sound and then playing it back, i get broken low volume static sound,im using xp,also the mic built into my laptop dosnt seem to be able to pick up sound,its a advent 7000 laptop,thanks for the tips