CS2 (CSGO) Mic Not Working

You won’t achieve much with your mic not working, and you’ll have an even harder time if you can’t fully communicate through voice chat. A game like CS2 (CSGO) will require you to have a microphone, especially if you’re an avid competitive player. Even if you don’t play competitively, it’s always fun to meet other people on public servers. With that being said, there are a lot of people that experience issues in CS2 (CSGO) nearly every day, and today we’re going to be covering issues related to your CS2 (CSGO) mic not working.

Why Your Mic May Not Be Working Properly

Your mic not working is a serious issue, and it can be caused by many different factors.

• Default device is not set
• Game settings/sound settings tab is not properly adjusted
• Microphone access not granted
• Windows audio service issues

Today we'll take a look at the possible causes of your mic not working, and provide solutions in order to fix it.

Default Device Not Set

Sometimes we may not think about it instantly, but maybe the reason why your mic is not working is that your microphone isn’t set as a default device. Here’s how you can quickly do that:

1. At the bottom right of the taskbar, near the notification area, you’ll see the volume icon.
2. Right-click on it and select ‘Sounds’
3. Clicking this will redirect you to the Device Manager, where you need to make your way to the Recording tab and find the microphone that you’re currently using.
4. Right-click on your microphone and select ‘Set as Default Device’; if you want to use a secondary microphone, select that and press the ‘Set Default’ tab.
5. Furthermore, you can select a certain microphone and click ‘Properties’ in order to check if it’s muted.
6. Another thing to check would be the ‘Playback’ tab next to the recording tab, as there are sometimes enabled devices that interfere with your microphone. Do not disable your speakers or audio outputs, as those will rarely ever interfere with microphones.

Audio Settings Tab

For whatever reason, the default audio settings in CS GO may be the answer to your mic not working. However, this isn’t too much of an issue, as you can easily go into the audio settings tab and adjust it accordingly. Here are a few steps to help you navigate through your CS GO settings:

1. Launch CS2 (CSGO) and make your way to the Game Settings
2. Then go into the ‘Audio Settings’ and select ‘Audio’
3. Here you’ll see multiple settings related to your audio in the game.
4. Adjust these settings accordingly, and be sure to set the Audio Output Configuration to Stereo Headphones.
5. Additionally, there’s a chance that you may have muted your friends accidentally, and this can be checked by going to ‘Game Settings’ and then ‘Communication’
6. Lastly, ensure you’ve assigned a shortcut key if you’ve set it to Push-to-Talk.
7. This can be done by simply going to your key binds and setting ‘Use Mic’ to anything key that suits you.

This likely won’t be the root of your problems, and that’s mainly because of how well the default sound settings are configured, so unless you tampered with the mic settings sometime in the past, this shouldn’t be the source of your problems; but it never hurts to check.

Windows Microphone Access

Windows can sometimes reset certain aspects of your privacy settings after system updates, and privacy settings are also where you can allow certain programs to use your microphone. This is why windows updates sometimes mess with your microphone’s settings, but it’s still a quick fix regardless.

1. Type ‘Settings’ into the Windows Search Bar and an app with a gear icon will pop up
2. Go into the Settings and find ‘Privacy’
3. Once in ‘Privacy’, you’ll need to go into the ‘Microphone’ section.
4. This section will allow you to let specific apps get access to your microphone, and it may sometimes block CS GO from accessing your microphone.
5. If any of the options on this page are turned off, be sure to turn them back on in order to ensure that the necessary apps have microphone permissions.

This can sometimes affect the entirety of your system, not just CS GO, so make sure that this is turned on by default. In our experience, it’s just best to leave most Windows settings in their default state.

Restarting Windows Audio Service

If nothing else worked, there’s a chance that there’s simply a glitch with the Windows Audio Service, and to fix this you need to restart the entire service itself. Here’s a quick way to reset this and possibly fix your issues:

1. Type ‘Run’ into the Windows Search Bar and open it
2. This is where you’ll need to type out the following command: ‘services.msc’
3. Click enter and you’ll be redirected to the ‘Services’ window
4. This is where you’ll need to search for the service with a gear icon called ‘Windows Audio’
5. Select that service and press ‘Restart the service’ on the top left corner of the window.
6. Exit the window once the process is complete

In all honesty, this is one of the best methods out there, and it might resolve whatever issue you are facing. It’s hard to pinpoint what’s plaguing you, especially when it comes to windows, so this is most likely your safest bet.

Voice_enable Command

There’s still something else you can try before you give up, and that’s to enable your mic via the in-game developer console. This may not work if the issue isn’t with CS GO itself, but it’s worth a try if you’re ready to give up.

1. First off, go into your Game Settings and select the ‘Game’ Tab
2. Find ‘Enable Developer Console’ and switch it to ‘Yes’
3. Return to the Main Menu and open the console by pressing the tilde ~ key
4. Now type in this console command: ‘voice_enable 1’
5. After you’ve done that you should be able to use your mic in CS GO

Last Resort: Verify Integrity of Game files

We all know that desperate feeling of not knowing what’s causing your mic not to work, and the if nothing else works, the last thing you can do is to verify the integrity of your game files.

1. Log into Steam and find CS2 (CSGO) in your Steam Library
2. Right-click on CS GO and go into its ‘Properties’
3. As soon as you’ve entered the local files tab, you’ll see the option to ‘verify the integrity of game files’
4. Click on that and it’ll start verifying files, once it’s done it will replace any corrupt/missing files.

This method mainly works if some CS GO game files are corrupted or missing, which can cause certain things in the game to malfunction. Never mess with your game files unless you’re following a safe tutorial or know how to manipulate game files of any kind. 

All in all - If none of the methods above work, then something is wrong with the actual microphone drivers, which is in most cases fixable. Moving on, we hope that this guide helped you with your mic not working in CS2 (CSGO). If you’re interested in similar guides, we’ve made articles on how to fix CS2 (CSGO) not opening, and how to cap your FPS for stable in-game performance.