Ok, maybe I'm having a stupid attack but here's my issue. My 10 yr iold son's Dell inspiron 3671 has a front headphone jack and seperate audio and mike outputs in the rear. What I'm trying to do is plug the speakers into the front jack and the headphones into the rear jack so he can use his mike. apparently when you activate the front jack it deactivates the rear output and vice versa. He almost always uses his speakers but when his brothers or sisters, who live in another state, call and want to play online he needs his mike. Is there not an easy way to just turn on or just plug in his headphones and have them, as Todd says, just work. I think I've confused myself into a corner. It seems the isse is the front headphone jack is not one that can req/use a mike.