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I have a laptop with Windows 7 and I have headphones for a couple of months, and only recently they started to play only the music, while the voices are there, but just very faint. I tried to connect them to another computer (PC, windows XP) and they worked fine, which made me think the problem isn't with the headphones but with the laptop.

I've searched online and found a few solutions, none of the seemed to work. Such as: plugging in and out my jack until you can hear better, checking the headphones on other computers.

Other relevant info:

  • The headphones come with a mic
  • if I right click the sound icon -> sound devices. Then I dont see any 'headphones', not even if I tell it to show disabled devices. All I see is a 'speakers' icon, yet it's there even if the headphones are disconnected, and is always active.

So if anyone has any idea I'd appreciate it :) Thanks!

TheEmeritus
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7 Answers7

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I figured it out! On my part the voices weren't working, but the background music played fine. While reading this blog, I played around with the balance volumes on speakers while letting a video play. The Balance Volumes that were centered were the only thing not making the voices work!! Thanks a lot.

This is what I did: 1. Go to sound icon and right click. 2. Click on playback devices. 3. Click on the speakers and then properties. 4.Go to the levels tab and click balance 5. Set the left (L) one on 80 and the right (R) one on 50

That's all I did and now my earphones are working fine on my laptop. Hope that helps. ~ (I have a windows 7 laptop)

Cmiler12
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  1. Sounds like your trying to push 5.1 out of 2 speakers and only getting the L/R or the rears. YouTube sounds fine I'm guessing but those movies you downloaded have 5.1 sound? Make sure your not set to 5.1 in the speaker config: Sound/Speakers/configure: stereo

  2. Sound card is burnt out.

Get a USB audio adapter.

Mythrillic
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Mazura
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I had the same problem as you describe and the solution was to set one of the Balance values to 0 (see other answer from terdon about how to access the balance setting), rather than setting them both to the middle.

Marcks Thomas
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Stephen
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I took out my earbuds and plugged them back in (after fiddling with every audio setting I could find for an hour). Worked for me, but I'm unsure why, but, yeah.

Sarah
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It sounds like you have set the balance be only on one side. Go to the control panel => sound:

enter image description here

Click on "Properties" and then go to the "Levels" tab:

enter image description here

Click on "Balance" and set it to the middle:

enter image description here

terdon
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I ran into this recently with a headset and 6.35mm to 3.5mm adapter, so I might as well post a technical answer.

The problem is that the ground wire is not connected, so instead of current going from signals to ground, it goes from left to right signal. This way you hear only the difference of left and right channels, but not the signal that is common for both. Usually speech is mixed to center, so it gets filtered out first.

This sometimes happens with headsets with microphones, because they have four contacts in the plug instead of three for stereo. The ground contact in the headphone jack should be located so that it connects always to the ground and short the microphone to ground, but some jacks have it in a location where it goes to the middle connector that is microphone. For stereo plug it would work, because the ground contact extends over the are where mic contact would be.

The solution is a better adapter, or an extension cable that has contacts in better location.

Adjusting channel balance kind of works, because that way the sounds at center are played at different volumes at left and right, and you hear them as channel difference but it doesn't sound that good. Half pulling the plug kind of works, because that way you get ground and left channel connected to the signal contacts. That doesn't sound that good either. Unplugging and plugging sometimes works if the connector in jack moves even a bit.

ojs
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I found out an solution. I have 2 pcs and a phone, i managed to do the "half-way in and halfway out" method on one of my pcs, the method is basically that you only pull it out a little.

But on my phone and the other pc I had to get creative. I messed around in sound settings and changed the balance to only be audible in the left ear, which in turn fixed it! I could still hear on the right side, so I am unsure what the cause is.

I'd imagine that it distributes the audio and stuff to more channels than there actually are, and that if you basically eliminate those you will get a better sound.

Nerko
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