Weird behavior of my front 3.5 mm jacks

[HeyCrest]

The front 3.5 mm jacks/ports of my PC are behaving very differently. I have tested them using 3 things - my headphones and my Skullcandy earphones with a mic, and a random cheap pair of earphones that also have a mic.  So here is everything that's happening-

• For the audio (headphone symbol port) -

1. The headphones will produce sound from both left and right ears only if they are connected in a certain angle. If I move the wire a little, only left side of the headphone will produce sound. I have checked that the headphones are not an issue by connecting them to my mobile phone and a laptop and moving the wire a lot. They have no problem on other devices.
2. My Skullcandy earphones work fine in the same port, and will still produce sound from both left and right ears even if the wire is moved.

• For the microphone port - 

1. My Skullcandy earphones have a mic that's similar to any standard mic that comes in a mobile phone's box, with a button to take or end calls. The mic does not work AT ALL when connected to the mic port. It however works, with excellent quality, when connected to a mobile phone.
2. The cheap earphones' mic too does not work on the mic port, but works on other devices like a mobile.
3. My headphones do not have a mic so I couldn't test them for the mic port.

Note: All 3 - my headphones and the 2 earphones - have only a single cable to plug in (no separate cables for audio and mic). I have ordered headphones that have a mic and come with separate connectors for audio and mic. I am worried that they will not end up working properly on my computer, and I really need audio and mic ports to work (for gaming, plus I plan to live stream) so I need to figure out where exactly the problem lies and how to fix it.

Thanks!

[lopj245]

I had this same problem, had bad front panel IO, some better quality headsets would work and some cheaper ones would have the issue if moved. You could always try updating drivers. 

[HeyCrest]

Just now, lopj245 said:

I had this same problem, had bad front panel IO, some better quality headsets would work and some cheaper ones would have the issue if moved. You could always try updating drivers. 

How did you solve it? By buying a new front panel IO?

[lopj245]

5 minutes ago, HeyCrest said:

How did you solve it? By buying a new front panel IO?

I bought a new case

 

[TheBahrbarian]

8 minutes ago, HeyCrest said:

How did you solve it? By buying a new front panel IO?

I had a really cheap Rosewill case for my first build and ran into this problem. Basically all of the front IO on the case (audio, USB, etc.) was useless cheap garbage. I got tons of noise on the audio jacks, half the USB ports didn't work at all and the others would only work sometimes. It basically came down to really cheap manufacturing.

 

I am sure you could purchase replacement ports and solder them into existing wire for the front panel IO (although if the wire is super cheap as well that might need to be replaced as well). I've never done this so I am not the right person to ask how to do it, but I am sure its possible.

[Ramrod126]

I'm pretty sure no front panel 3.5 mic port will work with a 4 pole 3.5 plug. The PC is expecting two plugs, one for mic and one for headphones. Not a single plug with two channels of audio AND a microphone. As for the sound cutting out, that is probably a sign that the port is going bad.

You can buy splitters that separate the single plug of your headphones into the two plugs that the PC recognizes.

This is the one that I use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FB9WC92/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[HeyCrest]

2 minutes ago, Ramrod126 said:

I'm pretty sure no front panel 3.5 mic port will work with a 4 pole 3.5 plug. The PC is expecting two plugs, one for mic and one for headphones. Not a single plug with two channels of audio AND a microphone. As for the sound cutting out, that is probably a sign that the port is going bad.

You can buy splitters that separate the single plug of your headphones into the two plugs that the PC recognizes.

This is the one that I use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FB9WC92/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thats a big relief, since I have just purchased a headphone w/ mic that has two different plugs. Thank you so much!

[Ramrod126]

No problem. My headset (HyperX Cloud Alpha) has a single plug but came with a splitter. That way they can be used with consoles or PC....or phones I guess but big ass over the ear cups might look silly in public, lol

The reason I use the splitter I linked is because I just didn't need the extra three feet of wire the stock splitter came with hanging off my PC case.

 

[Matacks]

To me it sounds like your headphones wires are damaged.  I've had this happen several times with different earphones/headphones.  When it happens it's pretty hard to repair them so I just bin them.    The port on the PC itself is usually a lot more robust and less prone to damage than fragile headphone wires..  

[HeyCrest]

3 minutes ago, Matacks said:

To me it sounds like your headphones wires are damaged.  I've had this happen several times with different earphones/headphones.  When it happens it's pretty hard to repair them so I just bin them.    The port on the PC itself is usually a lot more robust and less prone to damage than fragile headphone wires..  

While I want what you said to be true, as I mentioned in my post, the headphones with the same wires work fine on other devices, even after I twist the wires and try to recreate the problem.

[Matacks]

22 minutes ago, HeyCrest said:

While I want what you said to be true, as I mentioned in my post, the headphones with the same wires work fine on other devices, even after I twist the wires and try to recreate the problem.

Oh my bad.   This is a peculiar problem for sure.  I don't really have any help advice other than relating to having one-time had the audio ports not work correctly on an antec 1200 case I had.  But they worked ok on other cases.