altec lansing headset and macbook

I was trying to chat in second life (voice) but the built-in mic is being drown out by a louder than normal fan, I saw that because it just started a few months ago. I had this altec lansing headset for a while now.. Its a stereo collapsible headset with "normal" 3.5mm jacks - both with stereo type hookups and mute/mid/high switch for mic and volume control.


I've periodically tested the equipment and now know its the macbook or the jack itself thats not designed for this. I've tried the headset on another pc without issues and tried this in both osx and bootcamp (vista) and it does not show any lvl of voice received in the bars in both OSs (in other words nothing received from). Of course I've made sure that the volume/mic control is ok, the jack itself detects a device inside vista and headphone jack works perfectly in both.


So? I'm wondering if the macbook jack itself is designed for another type of mic, jack headset. Maybe it DOES have the optical input/output that the pro does? or does it require an adapter of some kind - like stereo to mono?



I didn't know how else to describe the macbook, so I'm just putting in my system profile.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version: 1.13f3
Serial Number: 4H7010DLWGL
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled





Intel High Definition Audio:

Device ID: 0x83847680
Audio ID: 34
Available Devices:
Headphone:
Connection: Combo
Microphone:
Connection: Internal
Speaker:
Connection: Internal
Line In:
Connection: Combo
S/P-DIF Out:
Connection: Combo
S/P-DIF In:
Connection: Combo