Faulty headphone jack on new laptop?

unforeseen

pbartlett said:

if you feel like splashing out you could get a dragonfly red usb adapter it has its own dac and will be far superior to the one in the laptop

Why buy a £160 adapter unless you are an audiophile? Especially when it's just being used for TV catchup, you tube etc. 

coffeehound

You can buy much cheaper USB DACs but must say the AQ Dragonfly is brilliant.  Even cheapo £13 Panasonic phones sound good through it.

daveyjp

Try plugging in the headphones before opening iPlayer, youtube etc.

Using Teams, Webex etc for over a year I have learnt that I need to plug the headphones in before opening the meetings software.  If I don't the app doesn't always recognise the headphones are plugged in and they don't work.

Manxman_in_exile

daveyjp said:

Try plugging in the headphones before opening iPlayer, youtube etc.

Using Teams, Webex etc for over a year I have learnt that I need to plug the headphones in before opening the meetings software.  If I don't the app doesn't always recognise the headphones are plugged in and they don't work.

Yeah.  I had wondered about that as well, and it might be the cause of the problem.

The difficulty as always with intermittent faults is determining if they are present - or still present - at all without carrying out loads of single variable tests.  Even then you can't be certain...

matelodave

I'd be inclined to check what pbartelt suggests, I've got a pair of plug in headphones than dont work properly with my laptop or MP3 player.  Over the past few years some computers or headphones have been equipped with 3 ring or four ring plugs or sockets and they dont always work undess you got the correct mating connector. Is your socket a combined mic/headphone of are there two, one for mic and one for phones.

TBH I now just use bluetooth haedphones, mine are noise cancelling, cost me £25 from 7dayshop and work with all my bluetooth stuff (phone, MP3 player, laptop, tablet, TV etc. They dont need a cable and they run for about 15 hours on a charge.They are also pretty good if I'm on public transport as they do a reasonable job of muffling the sound of chattering and phone calls. They may not be the ultimate in hifi but I find that they are pretty good as I'm a bit deaf (I wear a couple of hearing aids)

pbartlett

this is what i had to get for my dell - as you can see it splits the 3 ring socket into headphones and mic.

Manxman_in_exile

OK - I'm curious now.  I missed the point made by pjbartlett about combined microphone/headphone jack and whether 3 or 4 rings.

All the headphones and earphones we use have 3.5mm jacks with what Wikipedia describes as a tip, a ring and a sleeve, and those three metal "bits" are separated by two black insulating rings.  (I assume that's a 3 pole or 3 conductor jack?).

So is the question whether my laptop has a combined microphone/headphone socket?  If it has, I presume it will have one more pole or conductor than my headphone jack, which may cause a faulty connection?  Have I understood?

How would I be able to tell?   In the Dell documentation giving the spec for my machine it says under Description:  Audio port/External audio interface and it says under Values:  Headset jack - Note  The 3.5 mm headset jack functionality varies by model configuration. For best results, use Dell recommended audio accessories.

There's no mention of either a separate microphone jack or a combined 'phones/microphone jack.  The only mention of a microphone I can find is to the inbuilt one located next to the camera.

Does that help me narrow down the search for the cause of my intermittent fault - either by confirming a potential cuse or by eliminating one?

And thanks for the assistance.  Very enlightening - I think I've learned more about this Dell in 24 hours than I did about the Tosh in ten years!

grumpycrab

Have you updated the sound driver from Dell's website yet?

matelodave

If you've got two sockets, one marked with a microphone symbol and the other with headphones then you probably got a three ring socket for headphones but if its combined (ie only one socket) then it will be a four ring one like it shown in the picture (tip, ring 1, ring2, sleeve). If the headphones only have three rings (tip, ring, sleeve) then you are likely to get intermittent contact so you'll need an adapter like the one shown.

Manxman_in_exile

grumpycrab said:

Have you updated the sound driver from Dell's website yet?

All available drivers now downloaded according to their website.