How does the headphone jack know that I plugged a headphone in?

[milesuy]

How does the headphone jack on a phone or PC know that I plugged a headphone in?

 

-Headphone Jack on my phone and a 3.5mm Audio Cable

 

-Headphone and Mic Jacks from my PC case

[Arika]

the same way that plugging anything in works. a connection is bridged which essentially works like a switch to say "i am plugged in"

[milesuy]

I would like to see how it works, like a diagram on the circuitry (if electronically) or mechanism (if mechanical).

I am asking this because my laptop (HP 520) is stuck in headphone mode. The built-in speakers are working, but after I used a headphone, the built-in speakers are not working anymore. 

[Master Disaster]

It measures impedance across the terminal, it can guess what type of device by the amount of impedance it measures.

 

14 minutes ago, milesuy said:

I would like to see how it works, like a diagram on the circuitry (if electronically) or mechanism (if mechanical).

I am asking this because my laptop (HP 520) is stuck in headphone mode. The built-in speakers are working, but after I used a headphone, the built-in speakers are not working anymore. 

You should be able to open the audio manager and tell it nothing is plugged in to the headphone port. It also might have defaulted to that output in which case you would need to re set the speakers as the default output device.

[milesuy]

11 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You should be able to open the audio manager and tell it nothing is plugged in to the headphone port. It also might have defaulted to that output in which case you would need to re set the speakers as the default output device.

How can I do that? I am in Windows 10 Version 2004.

 

On the sound settings I only have 1 playback device. I think the headphone jack and built-in speakers are sharing 1 playback device.

-This is from another PC, but it also looks like this on the HP laptop. (Only 1 Playback Device)

[Master Disaster]

That looks correct, the Speakers are the default.

 

Do you have any form of audio manager/console? What is the  sound card?

 

 

[t0wer]

Some female  headphone jacks have 4 or 5 connections on the pcb side.

Stereo audio only needs 3.

When you plug in the jack, the extra pins that aren't Left/Right/Ground, are shorted to another pin.

 

Here's a jack I just bought.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cui-devices/SJ1-3525N/CP1-3525N-ND/738687

 

It has 5 pins, and when you plug something in pin 4 is shorted to pin 2, and pin 5 is shorted to pin 3

 

 

(Images showed in the preview, but not when I posted.

I just put the direct link to the product page.)

[Urumiko]

I've had a lot of issues with my realtek combo jack on my dell, It can have a software error where it stops asking what device was plugged in to the headphone jack so it just doesn't work but it's entirely in software.

 

You might want to try:

A:opening the bundled audio software and checking for options regarding what is plugged in.
B:A rollback if you've had recent updates.
 

[HenrySalayne]

The audio jacks I've encountered over the years worked by opening a circuit. There might be some dust, dirt or corrosion preventing the jack from closing the circuit again.

You should start with some compressed air or some small tweezers if theres lint in the jack.

You might have bent the contact switches or they are just worn, in this case the entire jack has to be replaced.

[HenrySalayne]

There were some similar problems on the old Apple Dock connectors. Maybe you find some help in these topics.

[milesuy]

On 6/21/2020 at 3:35 PM, Master Disaster said:

That looks correct, the Speakers are the default.

 

Do you have any form of audio manager/console? What is the  sound card?

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Urumiko said:

I've had a lot of issues with my realtek combo jack on my dell, It can have a software error where it stops asking what device was plugged in to the headphone jack so it just doesn't work but it's entirely in software.

 

You might want to try:

A:opening the bundled audio software and checking for options regarding what is plugged in.
B:A rollback if you've had recent updates.
 

It's the built-in audio driver, it does not come with any control panel, I can only control it from the Windows' sound settings.

 

There were no updates for the audio driver, since the rollback driver button in Device Manager is grayed out.

 

11 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

The audio jacks I've encountered over the years worked by opening a circuit. There might be some dust, dirt or corrosion preventing the jack from closing the circuit again.

You should start with some compressed air or some small tweezers if theres lint in the jack.

You might have bent the contact switches or they are just worn, in this case the entire jack has to be replaced.

I tried spraying it with compressed air, and I also tried to clean the audio jack (cotton swab with alcohol; also tried spraying WD-40 inside the audio jack), but the issue still persists.

[milesuy]

I am now trying to reformat / reinstall Windows 10. I'll update this post whether reformatting works or not.

 

Edit/Update: Still got the same problem, also tried running driver updates and Windows updates.

Edited June 22, 2020 by milesuy

[milesuy]

14 hours ago, milesuy said:

 

It's the built-in audio driver, it does not come with any control panel, I can only control it from the Windows' sound settings.

 

There were no updates for the audio driver, since the rollback driver button in Device Manager is grayed out.

 

I tried spraying it with compressed air, and I also tried to clean the audio jack (cotton swab with alcohol; also tried spraying WD-40 inside the audio jack), but the issue still persists.

 

14 hours ago, milesuy said:

I am now trying to reformat / reinstall Windows 10. I'll update this post whether reformatting works or not.

 

Edit/Update: Still got the same problem, also tried running driver updates and Windows updates.

Does this mean that the laptop's headphone jack is broken?