IDT headphones jack problem

Hello everyone.

My Vostro 3550 is only 2 weeks old and I think I might sense a hardware problem. I have IDT HD Audio sound solution and there are only two jacks in my laptop. Microphone jack works perfectly. Unfortunatelly, I can't tell the same about headphones jack. It doesn't work at all. Here is what happens when I plug them in:
sound, being played by speakers, shuts down. Then neither speakers, nor headphones produce sound. When I unplug headphones, speakers start playing again. IDT audio software, when I plug headphones in, recognizes them and says that headphones are connected. When I try pressing TEST, no sound is heard from headphones.

I've installed latest IDT audio drivers for my model from DELL support website, tried fresh Windows 7, Windows Vista install both with their native and IDT drivers. Neither work for me. Headphones works fine, I tested them on another pc. I've also tried connecting external speakers to my Vostro, no luck as well.

I think it is purely a hardware problem, but I want to ask your opinion first to avoid having my laptop away from me for a week or two while at warranty, should there be any software solution.

 

1. Check that Jack Monitoring is enabled in the IDT Audio Control Panel.

2. Is this a problem worth testing using a Linux Live CD? If the audio behaves itself under Linux then we know that the problem is with the Windows setup.

John

 

I'm having this exact same problem as Songee with a slight difference.

I have a Dell Latitude E6500 and every now and then I will get no sound out of my headphones. It occurs after unplugging the headphones and plugging them back in. Most of the time I can get sound from my headphones and get sound from my speakers if they are unplugged, but in some cases I can only get sound from the speakers and absolutely none if I plug in the headphones.

I also have the IDT HD Audio driver and it shows that it recognizes that my headphones are plugged in but no sound will come through if I try to test it. The problem seems to revise itself every couple of days randomly, but it is really annoying during that time. I'm fairly sure it's not a hardware issue as it works sometimes and then cuts off for a period of time.

The headphones work on other computers just fine, I confirmed that Jack Monitoring is enabled, and a restart does not affect the problem in any way.

Please help!

 

I tried it on Ubuntu Live CD and got the same result. I'm gonna buy a USB Audio adapter tomorrow and see if headphones work through its HP jack. If they don't, I will know that it's a motherboard issue and I will definitely have my PC taken to warranty service.

 

I have the exam same problem on my Vostro V130, and I just received this laptop 3 days ago. ;/
I've installed the latest IDT audio driver, too, and tried various Sound settings, but no luck...

 

Hi guys,

I have pretty much the same issue with the vostro 3550. Could you please let me know whether you have found a solution? Or has the dell support taken back your notebook? Actually I'm pretty puzzled whether there is a solution cause dell support has sent two technicians yet. They both exchanged the soundboard and concluded that it'd be a windows issue, suggested that a complete reinstall might help - seriously?

I'd really appreciate if you guys reply soon
Thank in advance, best regards

Nicolas

ps checked the live cd too, no relief...

 

Just reviving this thread to post a fix I found for the problem: I use both windows 7 and linux on my vostro 3550, and just today audio playback from the headphone jack stopped working. After some fiddling, I found a solution:
1. In windows, go to the control panel -> hardware and sound -> manage audio devices.
2. In the "sound" window that opens, click the "Speakers/Headphone" device, and then Properties.
3. In the new window, choose "don't use this device (disable)" in the drop-down menu on the bottom.
4. Restart computer.
5. Plug headphones into the jack, click on the audio symbol in the taskbar, try palying some audio. An automatic troubleshooting window should pop up, which re-enables the device.
6. Profit! Ehm, I mean, sound!

Probably this also works when you re-enable the device yourself, but I couldn't find the option before Windows fixed it with the auto-troubleshooting. I guess I'm too much used to fix things myself in linux, because my first instinct was to look up command line parameters on the internet

Hope it helps. If the solution should be written down somewhere else or the thread marked [SOLVED] or so, please do so.

 

Another possible solution:

->'Playback devices'

->For each device:

->right click ------> properties

->advanced------>Un-check the box 'Allow applications to take exclusive control of the device'

->Restart
Hope this helps.