Why Is My Gaming Headset Not Recognized? 4 Fixes

why is my gaming headset not recognized
why is my gaming headset not recognized

Sometimes when you connect your gaming headphones to a PC it may give you an alert saying windows don’t recognize your headphones.

It’s quite a frustrating thing to experience. Here are a few tips for fixing the problem:

1) Checking your ports

Hardware issues can sometimes lead to this problem.

Check where you have inserted your headphones. The fault may be in your USB port. So you can simply try it again after changing the port. For gaming headsets that come with a jack. Try seeing if your microphone and headset jacks are inserted into their proper places.

If you are sure about your ports functionality. The problem may be with your gaming headphones. Try connecting them with another device and see if that works.

2) Changing the default sound format

If the issue is not with your hardware. It’s probably the software that’s causing problems. One way to fix the issue is by changing the default sound format.

The steps with which you can achieve that are detailed below:

  1. Right-click on the Start Button.
  2. Open Control Panel.
  3. Look for Hardware and Sound properties then click it open.
  4. Click on Sound.
  5. Under the Playback tab, you will find an option for Default Playback Device double click it open.
  6. Click on the Advanced tab.
  7. In the Advanced tab change your default sound format by using the drop-down menu.

3) Set your gaming headphones as the default playback device

This fix can be applied if the previous fix of changing your sound format doesn’t work.

The steps with which you can achieve this are detailed below:

  1. Right-click on the Start Button.
  2. Open Control Panel.
  3. Look for Hardware and Sound properties then click it open.
  4. Click on Sound.
  5. Under the Playback tab, you will right-click and select Show Disabled Devices.
  6. From a list of available headphones, you will right-click on your gaming headphone’s name and enable it.
  7. Click on Set as Default then apply to save your changes.

4) A corrupted or missing sound driver

Is your window updated to the latest driver? Does your driver even work?

If none of the other solutions work the only issue you can have is a faulty/missing driver.

You can solve this issue by letting your windows update your driver. This is fairly easy to do.

The following steps will allow you to achieve that:

  1. Right-click on the Start Button.
  2. Open Control Panel.
  3. Look for Hardware and Sound properties then click it open.
  4. Click on Sound.
  5. Under the Playback tab double click to select your gaming headphones.
  6. Click on the Driver tab.
  7. Click on Update Driver and when the confirmation tab opens up. Allow it to automatically update your driver.

When the updating process is complete. Check your gaming headphones and see if they work.

Why Is My Gaming Headset Not Recognized?

Now, in a situation when all of these solutions end up not working. The only thing you are left to do is either return your gaming headphones or change them for a new one. As the underlying problem may be occurring due to a fault within your gaming headphones.

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