Headphone output socket

[Dave Davison]

Just had to replace my desktop computer, previously I kept the input lead from my tape recorder plugged in to the green socket on the back of the tower and my earphones into the appropriate socket on the front but there is no sound output from the latter. I am informed some setting needs to be altered in the BIOS so rather than return the tower to the techie for him to fix I wondered if it something I could do with instructions from the forum experts or would that not be prudent?

[Rudi]

Does your earphones have a volume control? (IOW: On the wire between the jack and the earphones.)
If it does, make sure that its volume setting is not on mute, before you start tampering with driver settings and BIOS.

I have been caught in this scenario where my earphones were giving no sound until I noted that the volume was turned way down.

[Dave Davison]

Thanks Rudi.simple answer is NO there is no volume control incorporated in the headphones. Regards Dave.

[Rudi]

Are you able to run this auto diagnostic?
It will run some automatic checks on issues that could be the cause...

[stuck]

Have you checked that the problem is not simply that the sound is muted?

I'm on a Win 7 machine at the moment so can't give you exact steps but the link below should be enough to point you in direction of what I'm talking about:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 5e7ea022e4

Ken

[Dave Davison]

Just to clarify the issue, I mentioned it to the shop owner yesterday who sold me the unit and he immediately said some setting in the Bios required altering. Seeing I very rarely use the recorder to transfer cassette data to the HD I have removed the tape recorder lead from the green socket on the back and inserted the jack plug of the earphones and they play fine. No great inconvenience really it's just that the green socket on the front of the tower is easier to access and enables me to listen to whatever is being copied to the HD. I did run the program you provided Rudi and all it reported was that the sound control was set low but no mention of a Bios issue. Consider the question resolved but thanks for the diagnostic link it could well come in handy some day. Regards Dave.

[Rudi]

Hi Dave,

Sometimes these posts (according to the driver that is controlling them), cannot be used at the same time...

Front speaker jacks: For convenience, many PCs duplicate the speaker and microphone jacks on the front of the console. You can easily connect a set of headphones, though not every PC lets you use both the headphones on the front of the console and speakers on the back.

[Rudi]

One other thing:
What audio drivers are being used on your system? Default Windows Audio drivers or Realtek Audio drivers, etc?

[BobH]

When I built my system (about 18 months ago) I discovered that there is wiring from the front ports to connectors on the motherboard. One of those connectors is for the cable that goes to the earphone jack port.

You didn't mention what BIOS you are using. That might offer a clue.

[Dave Davison]

Thanks for the responses guys. Seems the shop owner who refurbished my replacement either installed Realtek or it was already set up that way. I attach a couple of screen shots showing the sockets available on both the back and front of the tower. Realtek is completely new to me so I don't know it's capabilities, all I know is that with the previous computer I could copy cassettes to the hard drive and audio from the computer to a cassette whilst listening to the tracks via the earphones. In the case of the former [because transferring audio from a cassette must be in real time] I found being able to listen at the same time a great help because I could discern when the last track was finished without having to keep an eye on the machine. This was especially beneficial because some audio finished long before the end of the tape so stopping the recording prevented blank space which needed editing out with Audacity. Based on the attached pics & in light of the fact that the front socket for the earphones is dead, is it possible to set up the cables in a way which will enable me to record and listen at the same time? It was obviously not a problem with the previous machine because the socket on the front was working. Thanks again Dave

[viking33]

I have Win 7 but in Control Panel, there is a Realtek HD audio settup, where it brings up the screen shown below. It allows you to set up various configs for the Realtek devices.

Realtec.JPG

[Dave Davison]

Thanks Bob.............I suspect you have a different version of Realtek than me because clicking the Realtek icon in the control panel shows a display that has different tabs than yours; no hint of any tab related to the earphone socket on the front of my computer. To the question about the Bios in my computer, sorry I forgot to answer it besides I haven't a clue what the answer is, past advice has been "don't meddle with things you know nothing about" so the Bios and Registry are no go areas for me I'm afraid. Cheers Dave.

[Rudi]

Dave,

See if this will help

Else, scan through this thread and see if there is somthing you can take from it:

[Dave Davison]

Thanks Rudi.......will explore your suggestions and feed the findings back. Cheers Dave.

[Dave Davison]

Thanks Rudi.....tried both links but found nothing that solved my issue, still suspect what the shop owner said about some setting needing adjusting in the Bios - though as I said - that is a no go area for me. Attached are the two screenshots of the two Realtek sound manager options, yours shows three options whilst mine has only one which might suggest they are different versions. Thankx Dave.

[BobH]

Howdy, Dave!

Does your tape player have an earphone jack? If so, you should be able to plug your earphones into it and listen as the music is played and transferred to HD.

Sorry I didn't think to ask about this before.

[viking33]

Have you checked into the Realtek website to see if you have the latest version of the Realtek drivers and setup info?

[Dave Davison]

Yep, as the pic shows there is an socket for a earphones & believe you are right on that one as far as listening to tapes that are being copied however, that still leaves me with the original root issue of the front earphone socket being mute. Could well be a function that can be corrected in the Bios settings. Cheers Dave.

[BobH]

Hello, again, Dave!

I might have missed it, but did you tell us what sort of hardware you have and what operating system it uses? For example, I have a desktop system with an Intel Core i5 processor on a full sized ATX board running Windows 7 HPE. Equipment manufacturers are moving away from BIOS (Basic Input Output System) interface design to something called UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). This is a to-be-expected migration in design. The old BIOS interface (between the motherboard and processor and all other components) has fallen behind the advances in new devices; ergo the need for a more robust interface called the UEFI.

When you boot your system, do you see a message that tells you what the BIOS is or what the UEFI is? With that information we might be able to help you find your answers.

[viking33]

Dave,
I have Award BIOS with a Gigabyte MB. BIOS is the latest available for this system.
I went into my BIOS just now and as I suspected, there was NO mention of any setting that would apply to your situation.
Maybe there would be for a different BIOS but I would think not. What BIOS DO you have?
Since you appear to have a front panel jack for headphones, my guess would be that it has not been connected to the MB when installed or it has a poor connection.
It is a shame that you are not willing to open the case and look in there to trace the wires from connector to MB, so it seems you are at the mercy of your "tech."