IDT HD Sound on Dell Studio 17 - headphone port thinks it's in use when it's not.

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

Solved (Kinda?) IDT HD Sound on Dell Studio 17 - headphone port

I have a Dell Studio 17 that I am experiencing a sound problem with - I have NEVER been able to get sound out of the internal speakers, except with the Dell Diagnostics application CD that I downloaded and burned.

I've gone as far as upgrading to the latest drivers, to tinkering with the driver, to reapplying the latest BIOS update to actually re-imaging the machine back to the Dell default image.

I spent over 2 hours on the phone with their tech support guy and he has been unable to get it working. He doesn't seem to want to listen to me though when I tell him that it appears the sensor in the jack is bad..

How do I know this? This is what my IDT Control Panel applet looks like with the Dell included drivers with nothing but the power plugged into the laptop.

Notice the Right Side Panel - the far left jack, which is synonymous with the far front jack on the right side, thinks there is something plugged into it.

If I plug in headphones into that front jack, it works fine. If I plug in external speakers into the same jack, it works fine.

When I plug into the middle jack, the 2nd port gets larger and "bolded" - when I unplug it, it goes back to normal size. When I hover the cursor over that far left jack, it says that headphones are plugged in.

Upgrading to the newest drivers adds the HDMI port to the "Jacks" section on the right.

Now tech support wants to call me tomorrow and spend lord knows how long hand re-installing Vista Ultimate from the ground up - not from the Dell image. Gee - nothing like wasting what little time I have at home with my family glued to the laptop with tech support doing something that I know won't do squat for me.

I'm sorry - but - there is a SERIOUS problem if the Dell restore image doesn't fix the problem - this is not a settings issue - this is a HARDWARE issue!

I'm at the point where I am willing to just bypass the ports on the side of the machine in favor of using the internal speakers if I can find a way to do it.

Is anyone aware of a way to tweak the system into ignoring the external audio jack and go right to the system speakers?

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

Looks like I got ahold of the right people in sales - after explaining the whole situation they feel that I am getting the run-around too and they are arranging for me to get a return shipping label and do an exchange.

I've read that others have a similar issue with the Studio series laptops from Dell though - sounds like they need to revisit the design of those headphone jacks!

Barman58 · Sep 26, 2008

Hi JWhipple,

Thank you for the information, if you would edit your original post and add solved to the front of the title this will allow others with this problem to find your solution more quickly thank you

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

I changed the title, but it only saved for the original post.
Honestly though, this is far from real "resolution" - it's a band-aid at best, with other people having been found on other forums having the same issue with no fix.

Barman58 · Sep 26, 2008

Thanks, what it looks like to me is that the "Presence" pin on the jack socket is shorted out, (or permanently open, depending on the circuit used), which gives a false signal. I have seen similar in the past in other types of equipment, and in the good old days you could get to the things and "adjust" them, its a mechanical connection after all. hopefully before they ship your replacement someone will actually check the operation.:D

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

Yep - I think you nailed it on the head...

If there is something I can do, I'll do it and save myself the headache of having to ship this back, and go back to enjoying it!

Barman58 · Sep 26, 2008

Hi,

As this is a laptop I would have to advise that you let Dell do the swap as dismantling the case and actually getting to the socket would be a lot of effort, and you may find that the socket is encapsulated when you do get to it and not repairable, [the fact that Dell offer a replacement and not a repair would tend to suggest that this is not a simple job].

As this is obviously covered by warranty, I don't know how opening the case to this level would affect your position if you were unsuccessful and ended up sending the unit back to dell anyway.

Just make sure that there is nothing that you need, that has not been backed up, left on the drive, even if Dell promise to transfer data for you.

Hopefully as my experience with Dell on replacements has been good in the past, you will not be without a laptop for that long.

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

The offer for the replacement didn't come from tech support though - but rather, from sales.

Sales is here in the US - Tech Support is over in India.

Sales actually seems to give a damn - tech support works off queue cards.

Sales wants to see you come back as a customer - tech support is just a contracted group that doesn't care :-)

Barman58 · Sep 26, 2008

That's often the case with sales / tech support these days, the replacement should come from inside the US though

JWhipple · Sep 26, 2008

I happen to work as a manager in technical support for a software company that has been smart enough to NOT outsource. Our apps can't be done from queue cards - to do so would require about 20 minutes if digging through a book just to find the answer to a simple yes/no question :-)

The problem here is that sales will tell the customer ANYTHING just to make the sale. What they don't count on is that I will tell the customer straight up that they were told incorrectly when Joe Salesman decided to say, "Yes, it will do that" when it's clearly not something our apps will do :-)

Customers love me - sales hates me MUAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

Barman58 · Sep 26, 2008

honest salesmen, not quite an oxymoron but a rarity all the same :D. Good tech support that is the best sales aid you can get. :D Happy customers come back, we in tech support have to deal with unhappy customers a lot of the time how we do our job can influence future business more than sales.

hope you get your problem sorted a quickly as possible

JWhipple · Oct 1, 2008

I am at home sick today, so I decided now was the perfect time to call in and waste the time doing the hand reload.

The technician I got on the phone spoke nearly perfect English, and was one of the nicest people I have ever dealt with in tech support - I wish my tech support employees were as nice as her!

She reviewed the case and went over all of the troubleshoot steps that have already been done and decided that the reload wasn't necessary - her words were "If you have re-imaged the computer back to the factory load and the problem still exists, it is NOT a software problem."

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!

I explained to her how many hours I had invested already in troubleshooting the issue, and then how many hours had been wasted by the last tech support calls. She went and spoke with her supervisor and came back offering me a discounted upgrade to on-site repair service for 1 year, and would arrange the service call immediately if I decided to accept the offer.

Of course, I accepted!

I then got the opportunity to speak with the supervisor. Again - near perfect English! I thanked him for the upgraded service warranty, and gave kudos (I hate that word - but thats the only thing I could think of to describe it!) on the level of support given to me by the young woman I worked with. I also made sure he was aware of how unhappy I was with the idea of doing a hand reload to fix what was obviously not a software issue - he agreed, and said that option should not have even been mentioned.

My faith in Dell has been restored!

chughes868 · Nov 23, 2009

Working on the same problem friend, but I KNOW the port is bad - I had speakers in the port and, well, long story short, I ended up with a stem of the jack broken in the port. When I finally was able to remove the jack, I found myself right where you are.

Unfortunately, all information has pointed to me being out of luck and nothing short of replacing the actual headphone port will fix the issue. You can't disable the device or anything else that would allow your speakers to "find" themselves again.

If you do happen to find anything out...let me know.

GL>

mail2post · Jul 29, 2010

Hello....

Now Im getting same problem. can u let me know ur solution.

thanks in adv
Mail2post

IDT HD Sound on Dell Studio 17 - headphone port thinks it's in use when it's not.

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