Speakers won't work unless I plug in headphone - or mic

[EyeInStein]

I've spent 3 solid days searching - and cannot find a solution to this problem .

Here is what I know. I have a LW468UA (DV7-6169NR) with Windows 7

I cannot get sound out of my speakers unless I plug something into a headphone or microphone jack. When I do that, it will play through the speakers AND the headphones - UNLESS - I plug a headphone into either headphone jack AND a microphone into the microphone jack. When I do that, it finally plays ONLY thru the headphones. Pull the microphone out - sound comes through the speakers. Take all of them out - no sound out of speakers.

Here is what I've done.

A complete rebuild back to factory settings.
A hard reset and BIOS default after removing the drivers and reinstalling the original driver for my machine as administrator.
A hard reset and BIOS default after removing the drivers and reinstalling the latest driver for my machine as administrator.
Disabling the communication headphones and reboot.
Enabling the communication headphones and reboot.
Did the Windows troubleshooting - nothing showing

Here are some other oddities.

The Audio Control appears to be calling my speakers Analog Jacks instead of Speakers ( a clue as to why all of this is happening ? )

If I'm playing music or a video and adjust the volume on, preview, or test the communication headphones - the music will come through the speakers briefly.

It appears to me that the front panel analog jacks LR are the speakers in the front and the rear and the bottom analog jack is the woofer - while the left panel 3.5 is what is actually is. The other two jacks are the communication headphone jacks (headphone and mic).

 

[hang-the-9]

Some computers can adjust the audio jacks in software. Check how things are setup. Maybe in the BIOS. Could be broken also, some electrical short that causes this. Easy fix should be to get a $15 sound card.

 

[EyeInStein]

Due to the fact that I can get sound through the speakers while adjusting the volume on the slider only (albeit briefly) - I'm convinced this is a software problem associated with a windows conflict. This is a laptop, so I'm not considering a card or this would already be a non issue. If I knew WHERE in the IDT Beats software to make the computer look at my speakers as speakers - not jacks - that would be awesome. I think that would do the trick.

 

[John Green]

I'm having the exact same problem with my dv7. I just went to the Beats control panel - advanced settings - and restored the default settings and that seems to have fixed the sound. If it happens again I'll let you know. In the mean time I can say this, there is definitely a conflict going on somewhere with the beats audio

 

[Joanne91]

Probably the most unhelpful answer ever, however i'll give it anyway. 2 Days ago i started with exactly the same problem, i searched for ages to find a solution with no luck. So i started messing around with the laptop myself. I realised that my own laptop started messing up after i'd plugged it into the tv via HDMI which obviously altered my audio settings. Every time i turned my laptop on a little message would appear saying "you have just plugged a device into the audio jack" followed instantaneously by another message saying you have just unplugged a device from the audio jack", these two messages would pop up one after the other for about 2 minutes, and sound would only emit from the speakers when my headphones were plugged in; when they weren't, no sound would come out at all. At first i thought it was a driver problem, so i troubleshooted this with no luck, i restored my laptop to a previous working version, uninstalled and installed new audio drivers (didn't help), updated BIOS system (didn't help). I literally just had the epiphany about the tv and HDMI, plugged my laptop into the tv, and where it comes up with the integrated speaker settings and then the new speaker settings (for the tv), i chose the tv and then played some music and then switched back to my integrated speakers and set to default and voila, fixed. Unplugged, restarted and it's working perfectly. I'm well aware that this may be a unique problem pertaining to me, but you never know. Complete fluke that i fixed it mind. Hope this helps someone else, this issues a right bitch.