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atevaziley
atevaziley asked in Computers & InternetHardwareLaptops & Notebooks · 10 years ago

broken headphone jack on an acer aspire running windows 7?

Well I was sleeping my mom was on our laptop using the headphones and one of our cats jerked the cord, now the headphones will only work if you hold the cord just right and even then only one ear works and the built in speakers aren't working at all, what it seems like to me is that something on one side of the inside of the jack got crushed and now aside from that obviously not working I suspect that it's telling the computer that the headphones are still plugged in even when they're not, I've already done a little research and found the possibility of getting a USB headphone adapter, so what I want to know is (1) is there a way for me to disable the headphone jack so that hopefully the built in speakers will work, (2) will the USB headphone adapter work for my particular problem and (3) will there be any conflict between answers 1 and 2.

Update:

First just to clarify everything sound related (in fact everything in general) was working just fine until the cats jerked the cord and broke the headphone jack, this is a fairly new computer and this is the first thing to go wrong with it.

Also I tried GreyHawk's instructions on how the set the speakers to default, speakers was the only option and it seemed to already be set to default. I thought the fact that the headphones didn't show up there might mean I was wrong about why the speakers aren't working, so I plugged in the headphones and held them just right so that the one ear was working and looked again as I was listening to music coming from one ear of the headphone and there was still only the one device and it was labeled speakers but it indicated that that was the device that was being used.

4 Answers

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  • GreyHawk
    10 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    First, if your headphone jack is...er....jacked up.....feh. Anyway, that is actually attached to either the motherboard, or a sound daughter-board depending on the model. You can get hold of Acer and find out. If it is a daughter-board, then it may be something that a local tech can do for you if you get one from Acer.

    As for choosing your own playback device (where the sound comes out from) go into "Start Button ->Control Panel->Sound. Find your "Speakers" under the Playback tab, click it and then at the bottom of that click 'Set Default". That will set the speakers as the default device.

    When you use a USB set of headphones, you can do the same step to set THEM as the main playback audio device. In some cases, you will get the choice as soon as you plug in a set of USB headphones. Some software has it's own controls that allow you to pick different playback devices from the Windows Default playback device, so you may have to pay carefull attention. Generally, if you get it set over to the speakers, it will not kick back to the headphone jack unless someone plays around with the jack.

    Source(s): 15+ years as an IT Professional
  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    First, there are several USB sound cards the size of a flash drive that have a jack in the end for speakers or headphones around $20.00. Using one of those will not conflict with any working or non-working components in your laptop. Secondly, when and how did the speakers stop working. Was it damage related like the audio jacks. Does the speaker icon still appear in the right bottom corner? If the icon is there, right click and select sound. Then select the playback tab to see if the speakers are selected. It is possible that somehow a different device may have been selected for audio output. If so, change it back.

    Source(s): A+ Certified Tech
  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    Do you have another pair of headphones? if not buy another pair at the dollar store.

    Plug them in and see if they work. If not, unplug them and this should re enable your speakers.

    If that doesn't work then a piece inside your computer was moved, and needs to be either moved back into place, or possibly replaced. Either way it shouldn't be TOO expensive, but still sucks to do.

  • Jim
    Lv 7
    10 years ago

    you have have your ports repaired but it will cost you about $200 or so. cats are expensive and they are not good for laptops (fine hair clogs up cpu cooler and stops the fan). get a desktop. they are more impervious to things like that, however, you need to clean the cpu cooler out every year.

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