Microphone not working

[moot]

I need this for a clinic.  I can't teach by text, it's just impossible.

I've just reinstalled windows fresh, and there's no signal at all from the mic. It's plugged into the right socket. The drivers for the sound card (brand new) were installed after only the motherboard and graphics drivers. They seem to work just fine otherwise (except for some strange positional rendering inside the game, but that's negligible).  I bought a new mic and it too doesn't give any signal.  I've tried the different input choice inside programs' preferences (e.g. "Microsoft sound mapper" in Audacity) and that changes nothing.  The only onboard sound in the motherboard Bios' chipset menu (USB audio) is disabled.

I can't think of anything else.
Dxdiag dump
M2N-SLI motherboard
AMD X2 3600+
Windows XP SP2
Audigy SE with the CD drivers

[Chalenge]

Is the mic muted in recording options for your sound applet?

[Denholm]

There is the possibility that that your Audigy sound panel has the microphone(s) muted while your windows sound panel has the volume turned all the way up. Make sure that Creative's, "Speaker Settings" (found in Start>All Programs>Creative>Speaker Settings) are set to match that of the control panel.

[moot]

Nope.. Selected (it mutes all inputs but the one selected for recording) and made to sync with the windows volume control.
This should be in Hardware and Software, sorry.