Windows 10: Microphone Problem - HP Pavilion laptop with Windows 10

I have an HP Pavilion 15-cs1067nr with Windows 10, received September, 2019. The microphone has never worked. Cortana can't hear me and in Zoom meetings no one can hear me. I can hear other attendees but no one is hearing me. I know I'm not muted. I tried mic setup and Cortana setup and troubleshooting. Nothing has worked. Any ideas for a fix? What else can I try? I was hoping it was a setup problem, but could it be a hardware problem?


Thanks.


Rick

:)

 

HP Pavilion desktops headphone and microphone input

Is the icon on the front of your machine a headphone icon:





or a headset icon:





If it's a headset icon, you may be able to use a dual 3 zone to 4 zone adapter:

 

HP Pavilion desktops headphone and microphone input

It appears to be a headset icon. So it could work but I need an adatper. What about the ports on the back? Can headphone be plugged into audio "line out" (port 6) and microphone into port 7 (refer to image above)

 

HP Pavilion desktops headphone and microphone input

1. USB 2.0: 2
   
2. LAN (Ethernet)
   
3. HDMI out
   
4. USB 3.0: 2
   
5. Audio: Line in
   
6. Audio: Line out
   
7. Audio: Microphone

Here are photos of the front and back of one of the HP pavilion desktops. As seen on the front, you can only plug in headphones, but not microphone so I can't use that. Looking at the back, I'm not sure what audio line in and line out means. Microphone can probably work with slot 7 but I'm not sure about the headphones.

I need the headphone and microphone ports to be very close to each other, so I can plug in a typical headset.