MS-1029 no sound through headphone jack

OK, last night I hooked up my laptop to my new HDTV through it's VGA input, and I had a stereo-mini plug to have the sound go through the TV speakers. It worked great, and everything worked. After I was done, I shut it down and took the laptop back to my desk.

In the morning, I turned my computer on and I had it running so I could remotely control it from my work office to instruct it to download some torrents(my speakers were off so I don't wake up anyone). When I got back home, I turned on the speakers but I notice that there was no sound. While playing a music file, I increased the speaker volume gradually. Once it was all of the way up, I could hear it, but it was very faint and "static-y". The laptop's speakers work fine, but something has gone wrong with the headphone out jack. I tested the speakers by plugging my MP3 player into the input and it played clearly.

I tried a hard reset (unplugging the power and removing the battery, then, after waiting a while, putting the battery back in and plugging it in again), I left it alone for a few minutes to let the laptop cool down, but the problem continued.

Any idea what may have caused the headphone out jack to just stop working? And any ideas on how to get it working again? Is my laptop just busted? I've had this laptop for over a year, and I have never experienced this problem before.