Tech Support in the Playground 2

[shadow_archmagi]

So, my mother just bought a new Emachine. It worked fine for awhile. She says the difficulty arose when she tried to watch a movie on it and hooked up speakers (Actually, my sister's boyfriend hooked up the speakers)

Ever since then, it only plays sound out of one side. It's definately a computer-side issue; I've tried multiple sets of speakers and headphones including my own personal gaming headset. They all produce sound normally on my computer, abnormally on hers.

I've tried checking the balance in the two places I know to check it; they're both normal.


http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6495/balance.png (http://img571.imageshack.us/i/balance.png/)



I tried calling Best Buy's tech support and they were baffled, reccomending that I take it into the store to have them glare at it for a bit. Of course, since it's been two weeks since I bought it, they would charge for the privilege.

I also tried calling Emachines tech support, and they said "lol, this is COMPUTER tech support, not SPEAKER tech support. We don't have to help you."

EDIT: I should point out that the screenshot is from my computer. I just wanted to show that those were the places I knew to check the balance at.

[factotum]

Sure it's not a hardware issue? The socket the speakers are plugged into might be damaged. (Also, if she only actually plugged some speakers in recently, how do you know the sound was working properly before?).

[shadow_archmagi]

Sure it's not a hardware issue? The socket the speakers are plugged into might be damaged. (Also, if she only actually plugged some speakers in recently, how do you know the sound was working properly before?).


She was using headphones previously.

Though I suppose socket damage is possible, it seems peculiar to me to think that the socket could be damaged in such a way that ONLY the right-hand information is destroyed.

[Erloas]

One side going out and not the other, on a 3.5 jack (headphones and speakers) the tip is left, the ring is right, and the base is common ground. So if something happens to the connector on the ring (or tip) just the right (or left) will go out.

I would assume this computer has a front headphone jack as well as the jacks on the back? Most computers have the front connector, have you tried plugged into that and seeing if it works the same way.
I know with most Realtek audio (used on the vast majority of motherboards) you can assign just about any audio jack to any speaker signal. If you don't have a front, try plugged the speakers just into the black, or blue (assuming its also at least 5.1 channel, some are only 2.1 and will only have 3 plugs) and trying again. If you set it to 5.1 channels (so it outputs to rear speakers and sub/center) you should get sound out of both speakers (I forget which colors are which speaker sets right now). Or you could assign whatever color you plugged into to be the front right/left speakers. With those various configurations you should be able to figure out if its a bad jack, or if one audio channel is just not being outputted (from a hardware failure or simply being muted somehow).

[shadow_archmagi]

Oh, that's ANOTHER oddity of the machine.

If you plug something into the FRONT jack, it says "NEW DEVICE DETECTED" but will not acknowledge it as a speaker or show in any other way that something is plugged in.

[Erloas]

Have you checked the device manager to see if all the hardware appears to be working right? Maybe the front panel audio is considered a different device (not sure how likely it is, but it is at least possible) and it is having problems.

[shadow_archmagi]

Have you checked the device manager to see if all the hardware appears to be working right? Maybe the front panel audio is considered a different device (not sure how likely it is, but it is at least possible) and it is having problems.

How would I check that?

[Erloas]

Right click on "my computer" and select manage, at the bottom of the system tools is the device manager. Or go to the control panel, open up Administrative Tools and device manager is there too.

Usually if a device is having a problem it will show up as an exclamation point. You might have to plug something into the front so it says new device found, for it to show up in the device manager.

[shadow_archmagi]

No exclamation points. It says Realtek Audio is functioning perfectly.

[Erloas]

How about switching to other plugs in the back, did that do anything?

[Capt Spanner]

No exclamation points. It says Realtek Audio is functioning perfectly.

I wouldn't say it's functioning perfectly, but it's certainly functioning normally.

In truth, it does sound like the actual jack on your computer is broken.

[shadow_archmagi]

How about switching to other plugs in the back, did that do anything?

I tried using the Blue "TELEPHONE LINE IN" jack and then told it "REPURPOSE CONNECTOR: HEADPHONES"

Then I told it to do the little test noise.

Now, on the normal headphone jack, the noise comes through fine on the left, and then the second test noise is completely silent, because the right doesn't work.

On the BLUE one, the noise comes through on the left both times.


EDIT: Tried the PINK microphone jack, and told it to repurpose to headphones.

Microphone jack works perfectly. Mum gave me twenty dollars for finding a way to give her working sound.

Still curious as to all the other issues though.