Sound problems

[Willzzz]

My mate has a problem with his sound, basically the computer thinks there is always something plugged into the front headphone socket and thus permanently mutes the rear socket so his speakers don't work.

I'd created a work around for him in that I told his computer to always output sound to the rear socket even when headphones are plugged in via the realtek drivers. He has to physically turn the speakers off when using headphones, but no big deal.

This was WinXP, he is now trying out Win8 and I can no longer find a similar option in the sound settings. Does anyone know how I can achieve a similar fudge in Win8? Or even better how I can fix the socket itself?

Thanks.

[wasabi]

Probably a short in the headhpone front panel circuit somewhere. The PC thinks something is plugged in if the circuit is complete, which the headphones would normally do. If he doesn't use the headphones much, simply unbundle the front panel connector block and remove the pair that control the headphones - that will at least allow the rear speakers to work.

[Willzzz]

Trouble is he uses both and switches between them frequently.

[Willzzz]

If this is a short is it worth poking around in the socket with a cotton bud or something? Or is the short likely to be elsewhere?

[nomissivraj]

I think i had a similar problem to this a while ago and had to go into playback devices (right click volume control and select playback devices) and disable then re-enable the microphone or speakers from there to get it working.
The problem has since then stopped oddly enough after an update for my graphics card.

[Thorsson]

I don't suppose his speakers have a headphone socket like mine do. I presume that this is onboard sound - is there any setting in the BIOS that would help (I can't think of any)? Have you checked the connector to the motherboard? I've had issues in the past where the connector from the case doesn't seem to match the motherboard pins exactly.