Some possible causes:

• Your computer speakers may not be turned completely down. If the other person's voice comes through the speakers, it can feed back to the handset microphone and cause the other party to hear an echo.

• Your Windows speaker and/or microphone settings may be set too high causing your caller's voice coming out of the handset speaker to be picked up by the handset microphone.

• If your soundcard has a mixing feature, the output might be mixed with the input, causing an echo. In the Windows volume controls, this feature would be labeled "Mixed Input Balance" or something similar. If your soundcard has this feature, make sure it is disabled.

Possible causes:

• If you are making a PC-to-PC call, have the other person check the possible causes listed in the above section.

• If you are making a PC-to-Phone call, your microphone volume may be too loud, exceeding the limits of the phone company's echo suppression. Try decreasing your microphone volume.

• Your connection may not be a good one. In this case, terminating the call and then reconnecting often results in a better connection.