Speaker problem, helllllllp!

[[BTF]adam]

hey sexys

I know this isn't a q2 problem but I hope you'll forgive me with the love you have in your hearts or crotches

I just bought some sick, sick, SICKENING speakers, they're the harman kadon soundsticks 3, now, when I first plugged them in on the floor to test them, no problems, ball tickling bass and sound out of both speakers. Orgasmic.

disconnected them, arranged them properly on my desk and plugged them back in, only one speaker worked. I promptly wtf'd and set about trying to fix it, now, another thing to note - plugging my headphones back in produced same problem, just one earphone worked. tested the speakers with my phone and ipod to make sure they weren't faulty, no problems with them, just the PC.

So I downloaded the latest drivers for my onboard audio, restarted the PC and boom, perfection! all working fine again.

Went out last night, came back today, mum was asleep so I unplugged and put my headphones on again for a bit, no problem, mum wakes up - SOUND SYSTEM TIME! plugged in the harmon beauties and lo and behold, only one speakers emitting sound again.

any ideas ladies? balances checked in sound options, should be 100% coming out of both. there's just the faintest, lowest volume imaginable coming out of one speaker and full glorious sound coming out of the other.

Thanks xxx

[haunted]

Find a 1/8 audio jack male to female extension cord.. plug that into your cpu, install your driver, and avoid physical contact with the 1/8 female jack that's built-in your cpu, which would be the purpose of the cord. This would at least narrow down the possibility of some kind of loose connection in there somehow resetting/reverting your driver in some kind of way(i've never heard of such a thing, just going off your story haha).

I'd do that, and remove any dust from my soundboard just to get a better idea as to wtf is going on, I guess.

[|iR|Focalor]

Exactly how do these headphones plug in? Is it some jack connected to any part of the new speaker system, or is it a different jack? I'm gonna venture a guess and say it's probably a different jack. You've probably got the speaker system plugged into the back of the PC tower and the headphones plugged into a jack on the front of the PC tower. So more than likely it's some kind of configuration problem. May be that you'll have to manually change settings somewhere each time you plug and unplug something from another jack. You'll have your little Windows sound cone icon in the tray, but you'll probably also have some OTHER sound control panel interface thingy that came with the drivers either in your hidden icons menu (if you're on Win7) or accessible somewhere from the control panel or "All Programs" menu. More than likely, THAT is where the settings are getting screwed with, probably something to do with the number of speakers.

[[BTF]adam]

The headphones could be considered irrelevant I suppose, I only have them plugged in when I UNPLUG the speakers to use them, they're both going in the same green jack on the back of the mobo. I'll have a root round see if I can find another sound option program hidden somewhere.

Dust, i'll get on that later, and report back.

cheers x 

[|iR|Focalor]

Weird. Well then that probably ain't the problem. Unless somehow that jack is detecting different types of speakers, which I don't think is even possible with that type of jack.

Other possible solutions...

This is probably gonna sound dumb, but maybe you don't have the plug shoved in all the way. On input jacks, there's 2 contact points for stereo cables. One part contacts right on the tip of the male plug, and another part contacts the plug on the side. If it's not pushed all the way in, it'll only deliver one channel of signal to the speakers. So just try jamming that thing in there kinda hard... without breaking the input jack of course.

If there's some kinda knob on the speakers themselves to control the volume, try rolling the volume knob up and down. Sometimes lint and static and crap can find its way into the potentiometer and interfere with contact points inside of the knob. Rolling it back and forth will usually scrape it off to where it'll contact clean again. I know my desktop speakers sometimes cut up in the right channel when the volume knob has been sitting in one position for a while and crud builds up in there.

If neither one of those things work and there is a secondary headphone jack on the front of the tower, maybe try plugging the speakers in through that one, and then test it by plugging up the headphones and then the speakers a few times. Buuuuuuuuut I'm guessing there ain't a plug on the front otherwise you would've already been plugging the headphones in there rather than taking the extra effort to reach around the back of the machine and plug them in there.

[[BTF] Reflex]

if it is hardare,  and its a good chance it is,  bandaid solution

http://www.markertek.com/LightBox.asp?b=SENN-UUSB4&x=0

I screwed up an audio jack with a bent prong b4.  Worked good with the bent one, but ruined it forever for any normal prongs.

Yeah, I like talking about my bent prong.


Good to see ya Adam.

[[BTF]adam]

Thanks for all your help boys, see it's weird, I havent tried any solutions yet because I don't need to, they're working again today! I presume the problem is isolated to unplugging them and plugging them back in causing the one speaker issue. so until I/we can get it figured out, i'm not using my headphones for anyone!!!

good to see ya still kicking too reflex man, i'm gonna have to jump on for a game or 2 soon