Laptop microphone driving me nuts

Hi, all. I got a new HP Pavilion DV-7 4165 Entertainment Notebook a couple of months ago. On Christmas, we Skyped with a former exchange student from Germany - I couldn't hear her, so I put on a set of headphones we have and talked for an hour

Later, I realized that the computer has an integrated microphone with the webcam. I futzed around trying to make it work the way I wanted it to, and now the microphone is always on, creating feedback if I turn up the speakers and echoing things I say. I Googled and found a site that said pressing the Windows key with V was supposed to toggle the mike on and off, but it doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas on how to fix this? TIA. Oh, and Happy New Year!

maybe you can go to your sound bar on the bottom right... right click... see if you can restore them back to defaults...still looking

many/most(?) of the HP's come with a Realtek Audio Manager. should be on the bottom bar but you can also access it through Control Panel

RealTek Manager (or Sounds)

you can "mute" the microphone there - Sounds has an option to "restore defaults" that may help...(?)

here's a link the the shortcut keys - the ?+V combo may be unique to a specific keyboard.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449