Speakers stopped working after I used my headphones
My speakers were working fine one moment but then stopped working after i used in my headphones. I still have sound when I use my headphones but when I unplug it, i can not hear anything from my laptop speakers. I went through the troubleshooting on my laptop but I still can not get sound to come out of my laptop speakers. Please help!
I think you have a problem with the headphones jack in your laptop. There are contacts inside the headphones jack, you can see them if you look inside the jack. When you plug the headphones into the jack, the plug shorts these contacts and the sound switches from the external speakers to the headphones. Apparently, these contacts got stuck in the headphones mode and because of that you cannot hear any sound from the external speakers.
I’m not sure if you can fix this problem yourself, probably you’ll have to take your laptop to the repair shop. Try plugging and unplugging your headphones a few times in a row, do it fast, it might help to release contacts inside the jack.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I forgot to add that I’d like to warn laptop users who might think of wiggling any metal in the headphones jack, please think Twice!!!
You can live without sound, but you won’t make without ur machine, will u?!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I went and wiggled a tiny paper clip in the headphones jack as mentioned on the first post (Cherie’s), and the worst happened! the pc just went off and it doesn’t want to turn on
This wiggling didn’t sound right to me, but after reading some comments of people who have succeeded I said let’s try it….
The problem I had was that I only get sound when using headphones, no sound from the internal speakers,
but when I unplug the headphones I could hear the sound from the speakers for like a second or half a second before it stops, so I knew that the speakers were not damaged,
anyway, Now I believe I have short-circuited something inside, I’ll have send it for repair I guess
Just wondering if someone had the same problem, if so, I assume you’ve taken it for repair, what went wrong? and how much did it cost you to repair it..lol??
Thanks
January 16th, 2009 at 2:32 am
why the sound play simultaneously on both laptop’s speaker and the earphone? i plugged my earphone into the jack but sound can still be heard from the internal speaker………..why?? how do fix this? i’ve just changed to xp from vista yesterday…
January 12th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
OK, here’s the solution for a bad headphone jack for those who don’t want to open their system up and try to replace or add a soundcard.
Get a Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro. It’s the size of a flash drive and it plugs into a USB 2 port. You can use it with headphones or powered speakers. It doesn’t have a line in or mic input. If you just want to be able to hear again and “wiggling the plug” doesn’t work, this is a $30 plug ‘n play solution. The only problem I had with it was the USB extension cord they sent with it seems to be bad – when I was trying to use it, after a few hours the sound would quit working. Since I plugged directly into the USB port I’ve had no more problems.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Excellent, thanks Laptop Freak, I was having the same problem as in the original question, just tried your advice with a push-pin and it worked like a charm. Thanks again!
January 8th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
OMGZ IT WORKED LOL TY U R LAPTOP JESUS!
January 6th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
This really worked u r great wow
January 5th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Annie,
Apparently the headphones jack is broken and will not switch from the external mode when you plug your headphones.
Most likely it’s necessary to replace the jack.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am
hey,
i was wondering if you could help me,
im basically having the opposite problem to the main article, my external speakers work perfectly,
but when i insert my head phones, the sound continues to come from the external speakers and no sound comes from the head phones. Im having the same problem with over 5 pairs of head phones. Any ideas?
Im using a compaq laptop.
Thank you.
December 31st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Dude I was living with no speakers for so long and it was driving me crazy im coming back to you everytime i have a computer problem
December 30th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
SIMPLY AMAZING!!!
December 20th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Respect, man. simple but genius
December 17th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I see several other people who have asked this with no reply, but I have the OPPOSITE problem – my external speakers work but headphones have been working only intermittently for some time and now not at all. Dell Inspiron 1500 series. Windows XP. Used to be I could get the headphone jack to work again by shutting down and turning it back on, sometimes took 2 or 3 times but eventually it would start working again, and it would work as long as I DID NOT unplug the headphones. So I just leave my headphones plugged in all the time, and reboot as necessary, but now it won’t work anymore.
I had already tried the plugging/unplugging thing, and I’ve tried wiggling the mic jack next to it as well as the headphone jack. I’ve noticed lately that when I plug the headphones into the mic jack I’ll get a burst of sound through the headphones before it decides it’s a “line in” device. It did NOT used to do this, on those occassions when I plugged into the wrong jack I would hear nothing, so that’s a new symptom.
Any clues, please? Please please please?
December 13th, 2008 at 1:20 am
absolutly worked.
you are amazing
thanks loads
jessicaa
December 10th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
THANK YOU! BRILLIANT ADVICE IT WORKED FOR MY INSPIRON 9400!!!
December 7th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
argh! i’ve had the same problem as jane and tiffy and robert with my Acer Aspire 3680. internal speakers work fine, but when i plug in my new external speakers i get NOTHING, for no reason. With my skype headphones it worked after i’d waited ages. Tiffy i don’t understand your solution, when i go into control panel > sound > there’s no roll back option. i disabled my internal speakers and still no luck.
please help!
“to jane and robert i had the same problem and no one seems to help with is so heres what i din i went to control panel/sound/and rolled bake the speakers it took a couple min. and i restarted it but it works yay “
December 7th, 2008 at 5:40 am
tahnks……….when i read it i thought it won’t work……..but wooooooola it worked
thank you very vry much hope d oders who have d same problem will try it
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Done well this worked a treat. Took laptop apart first with no joy. Started to give up and found this.
For me it was the mic port.
Cheers son!
November 30th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Thank you so muchhh!!!! At first it didnt work but i tried it again slowly and it worked!
November 29th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
to jane and robert i had the same problem and no one seems to help with is so heres what i din i went to control panel/sound/and rolled bake the speakers it took a couple min. and i restarted it but it works yay
November 25th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Thanks so much Laptop Freak! I’ve searched and searched the net for a solution to this problem and nobody seems to know the solution. Who knew it would be such a simple fix?!
November 11th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I had this problem and solved it with your response.
Thanx a lot!
November 10th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
YOU ARE AMAAAAAAAAAZING!! MY LAPTOP IS JUST NEW N WEN THE SPEACKERS STOPPED WORKING I WAS SOOOOO ANOYED!! NOW THER WORKING!!! THANK YOUUUUU!! ps: yess you should try it several times, i tried it for like 30 times until it worked
:D:D:D be fast!!
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
My speakers were dead all weekend, and the only i got some noise out of them was pushing the headphone jack in. Very frustrating!! After searching on google, found this site, tried out the trick and IT WORKED!!! Thank you so much!!
October 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
After taking the advise posted waaaaaay above, I gave it a shot. The support people at HP didn’t help much….. well at all. I looked in the jack and saw a tiny piece of junk in there. Got it out and worked immediately! Thanks for the ideas guys!!!
October 29th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The problem that im experiening is different to the one above.Whenever i would like to isen to music or sound through earphone/headphones, the music still comes out through the speakers and not the headphone. the laptop that i have is a toshiba equium.so i was wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same problem and if antone knows of how to fix it.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Like the rest of you, I was listening to headphones on my Compaq nc6400 laptop while at work. After removing them from the jack, I noticed that the speakers no longer produced sound. I check the hardware profiles and made sure all the device drivers were installed, played with the sound settings, etc… Everything showed up to be workign fine, according to the software. I even reinstalled the drivers just to make sure. Finally, I found your website by googling “speakers broken on laptop.” Your advice was common sense and I was considering fidgeting with the jack with a paper clip before ultimately giving up and calling tech support. I tried plugging and unplugging the headphones several times, and fidgeting with them inthe jack this did not work. Then I tried plugging and unplugging it rapidly, like a fruit-fly making love to his sexy girlfriend fruit fly! This worked, just at the moment my office mate was about to tell me I was a moron. Thanks.
October 27th, 2008 at 4:37 am
It worked me too except not until after I rebooted
October 25th, 2008 at 2:51 am
I broke my headphone port by sitting on the headphones and tried to take my laptop but headphones where really hard stuck under me and I heard really bad sound… after that my headphone port doesn’t work well. I have to move headphones port little up to hear sound from the speakers. I brought this laptop 2 months ago, is warranty gonna repair this?
October 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
hey if anyone has ANYdoubts at all…just give it a try,you’v'e got nothing to loose…cept the guy who broke his headphone jack…but yeah awesome method that actually works.thanx man.owe you one