Internal Mic not Working, external mic quits arbitrarily, I'm at wit's end!!!!

Question

Hey kids!
The Computer: Toshiba Satellite A355D-S69221
The Program: 32 Bit Windows Vista
The issue: Internal Mic not recognized, external mic quits midway through conversation, Realtek Digital output not plugged in.
So being the smart guy I am, a few weeks back I decided to do the smart thing and delete all the speech recognition software off this thing. I don't need it, so wth.
Now, my internal mic quit. I reinstalled the software, rolled back drivers, deleted drivers to rebuild the driver stack, did a BIOS update, did the GTA ViceCity cheatcode start (unplug everything hold power key 30 seconds, reboot, f2 to enter bios, f9 to update, f10 to save), and nothing. 
I did notice that when I had the Realtek Digital Output set as standard, my mic jack was illuminated by a red LED, and the Realtek HD manager wouldn't pop up when I plug something in.
The last irritating part is that I will talk to my wife via vo/ip, the external mic I am using will just quit mid conversation, and I have to reload a driver to get it to work again. I am at my wit's end with this thing, can anyone help? The last thing I am goign to do is another system restore from an earlier date than I used before. Does anyone have any other hints/clues/ideas?
KFD

Answer 1

Thanks Jeff. No this isn't some kind of emergency so no one really minds my tinkering until it does get back up.
OK, I got it now. This is what my cyrus.conf looks like. It doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it...
# standard standalone server implementation
START {
# do not delete this entry!
recover cmd="ctl_cyrusdb -r"
# this is only necessary if using idled for IMAP IDLE
# idled cmd="idled"
# UNIX sockets start with a slash and are put into /var/imap/socket
SERVICES {
# add or remove based on preferences
imap cmd="imapd" listen="imap" prefork=0
imaps cmd="imapd -s" listen="imaps" prefork=0
pop3 cmd="pop3d" listen="pop3" prefork=0
pop3s cmd="pop3d -s" listen="pop3s" prefork=0
sieve cmd="timsieved" listen="sieve" prefork=0
# at least one LMTP is required for delivery
lmtp cmd="lmtpd" listen="lmtp" prefork=0
lmtpunix cmd="lmtpd" listen="/var/imap/socket/lmtp" prefork=0
# this is only necessary if using notifications
# notify cmd="notifyd" listen="/var/imap/socket/notify" proto="udp" prefork=1
EVENTS {
# this is required
checkpoint cmd="ctl_cyrusdb -c" period=30
# this is only necessary if using duplicate delivery suppression
delprune cmd="ctl_deliver -E 3" at=0400
# this is only necessary if caching TLS sessions
tlsprune cmd="tls_prune" at=0400
LIMITS {
imaplimit value=0
But yet it insists with the message: relay=cyrus, delay=239180, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: couldn't connect to lmtpd: No such file or directory_ 421 4.3.0 deliver: couldn't connect to lmtpd_ )
when I try to send a message through the server. Could this be a permissions thing? I've fixed the permissions a lot of times and nothing seems to get changed...
Again, thanks for everyone's help. I'm sure this is something dumb that I'm just missing but since I'm not familiar enough with the system it's hard for me to figure out what that is!