Question Progressively worse front audio jack?

[takearushfan82]

Hi all.
A few years ago my front audio out jack began only playing one channel so I switched to the back jack. Now that I found my new headphones are too short to use the back jack I tried the front thinking "at least I'll have some sound even if it's not out both channels". However now the front jack doesn't produce ANY sound at all. Is it possible this is a simple fix or am I looking at needing a whole new mobo? I'm thinking that if it started off by going from stereo to only one side and now to nothing at all, it's probably just a loose connection that got progressively worse...? Would I be checking the motherboard itself for issues or the jack or... what? Has anyone else had this happen? I took a peek inside because I recently installed some new parts and I'm not even sure how I maneuvered my hands to access the front headers back when I first built this PC! It looks like it's probably pretty tedious to tinker with the jack itself. I'm not even sure how to do so.
Please help 😞

 

[Lutfij]

Please include the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the make and model of your audio equipment as well.

Given how you've mentioned upgrading parts, what did you upgrade to?

 

[takearushfan82]

Please include the specs to your build like so:

CPU:

Motherboard:

Ram:

SSD/HDD:

GPU:

PSU:

Chassis:

OS:

Monitor:

include the make and model of your audio equipment as well.



Given how you've mentioned upgrading parts, what did you upgrade to?

My specs are the following. I don't have any audio equipment besides the computer itself.

Intel Core i5-4460 3.2 GHz Quad-Core

Gigabyte GA-Z97M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

Yongxinsheng 16GB (8GBx2) DDR3 1866MHz (PC3 14900) CL13 Desktop Memory 240Pins 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered Ddr3 UDIMM RAM - Black

TEAMGROUP AX2 1TB 3D NAND TLC 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal Solid State Drive SSD (Read Speed up to 540 MB/s) Compatible with Laptop & PC Desktop T253A3001T0C101

ASUS GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Phoenix Fan Overclocked Edition HDMI DP DVI Graphics Card (PH-GTX1650-O4G)

Thermaltake Versa H21 ATX Mid Tower Case

PSU is CoolMax 500 watt I-500

The RAM, hard drive and gpu were upgraded from 8gigs of 1600 ram, 1tb 7200 hd, and gtx 750 1g to what I have now above.

 

[DSzymborski]

There's not much to check. You can check the header to see if it's still properly connected or if there's visible damage to the jack. But outside of plugging in the header properly or updating drivers, there's not much you can really do about the front jack.

But if the back outputs still work and the cord to the headphones just isn't long enough, it seems a bit inefficient to entirely replace a motherboard or buy a sound card to do the job a $2 audio extension cable could do just fine.

 

[takearushfan82]

There's not much to check. You can check the header to see if it's still properly connected or if there's visible damage to the jack. But outside of plugging in the header properly or updating drivers, there's not much you can really do about the front jack.



But if the back outputs still work and the cord to the headphones just isn't long enough, it seems a bit inefficient to entirely replace a motherboard or buy a sound card to do the job a $2 audio extension cable could do just fine.

I doubt it's the drivers. I'll check the motherboard too but I bet it's the jack itself. I'm not sure how to go about accessing it though. I forget how to do so, as there's so little room to maneuver and you can't really see back there. I built it in 2015 so I forgot how I did that part.
And yeah, I've been so out of it lately that it completely didn't dawn on me to just get an extension. Just goes to show what sleep deprivation can do :/ ... thanks for the reply

 

[takearushfan82]

There's not much to check. You can check the header to see if it's still properly connected or if there's visible damage to the jack. But outside of plugging in the header properly or updating drivers, there's not much you can really do about the front jack.



But if the back outputs still work and the cord to the headphones just isn't long enough, it seems a bit inefficient to entirely replace a motherboard or buy a sound card to do the job a $2 audio extension cable could do just fine.

Okay. Progress but still not 100 percent...
In the audio manager I checked a box about disabling front jack detection and now I have sound in the front. However (and this'll sound the opposite of what one would think) if the plug is inserted all the way, I only get sound from the left channel and the right is totally muted. If I don't insert the plug all the way and leave about a quarter unplugged I get full audio from both channels 😳 wth?