When I try to record, not only is there no playback, but sound stops working and I have to restart

I've had an HP Pavilion g6 (Windows 8) for about 8 months and I've had a lot of problems. It's refurb and it seems like anything that can go wrong will go wrong. The latest thing: I recently tried to record myself playing guitar and, though in the "Manage Audio Devices" screen it is clear that the computer recognizes the microphone and can configure it and everything, when I attempt to record with the "Camera" function, there is no sound capture. Or maybe no sound playback. It's hard to tell because after that, all sound on the computer through any player stops working, but the computer doesn't realize there's an issue when I troubleshoot. Only restarting fixes this. If I try to record again, the audio playback dies again. I don't think this is an issue with the microphone as it has worked on previous computers. Maybe this is Windows 8 or maybe this is a weird quirk of this awful machine. I cannot tell. Anyone have the same issue?