Sound

[Metspitzer]

I have a Dell laptop. The speaker stopped working. We were listening
to it with a pair of USB head phones. While trying to get the sound
going, I stumbled on an option to automatically fix the sound.

This caused the speaker to start working again, but now the headphones
don't work.

Right now my nephew has the laptop so I will mess with it later, but
any suggestions how to get both to work?

 

[Metspitzer]

I have a Dell laptop. The speaker stopped working. We were listening
to it with a pair of USB head phones. While trying to get the sound
going, I stumbled on an option to automatically fix the sound.

This caused the speaker to start working again, but now the headphones
don't work.

Right now my nephew has the laptop so I will mess with it later, but
any suggestions how to get both to work?

I got the head phones to work by changing the sound settings and made
it the default sound the USB. (now it is peaceful in here again)

I don't see an auto detect setting. It did auto detect when I first
got the headphones.

 

[Paul]

I got the head phones to work by changing the sound settings and made
it the default sound the USB. (now it is peaceful in here again)

I don't see an auto detect setting. It did auto detect when I first
got the headphones.

USB headphones are a "separate sound system", since the sound chip
is in the USB headphones. So it's like the headphones are a
"sound card". And to select internal speaker (running off the
motherboard HDaudio chip) or select sound from the headphones
(and the chip it's got), that requires selecting a sound device
from some control panel. Pulling out the headphone plug, will
likely result in Windows reverting back to the speakers, but then
the next time you plug in the headphones, chances are you're going
to need to select the headphones again with a control panel.

If you used *analog* headphones, things might work in a more
self-explanatory way. The sound chip control panel would
likely open on its own, and ask "whether you just plugged
in headphones or not". Analog headphones would have a plug
like this on the end of the cable.

http://www.parts-express.com/images/item_standard/090-292_s.jpg

If you use analog headphones, then the only sound device involved
is the HDaudio, which drives both the speaker and the analog
headphones. So only the one software and driver is involved.
If done right, the software asks you to confirm the output
device, which means less work looking for what to do.

Paul