sound only coming out of left side of headphones?

[Darktalyn1]

Hi,

I've started getting this problem where I can only hear sound out of the left side of my headphones. Thinking it was the headphones themsevles, I bought a new pair of headphones (the other ones were old anyway), and they have the same problem!

Before anyone says its my ears I tried plugging them into my MP3 player and sure enough, both headphones work on that - both left and right side.

I don't get it! What's wrong with my computer that it won't play my headphones properly - it's like I have some mono instead of stereo setting on my computer...

If someone could shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it, I can't figure it out thusfar....

[TheCope]

The jack is fried. Try playing around with the input plug (ala: turn it, pull it out a tiny bit) for a temporary fix.

What you describe is wear and tear, new card needed.

[Krom]

Yup, sounds about right. But lets check the stupid setting just in case...

Get to the windows Volume Control (Start > Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Volume Control) and make sure all the balance settings are centered. If they are properly centered, plug is shot, get new sound card, kthxbye.

[fyrephlie]

could be the kajigglefritter and the flogerjobber are not aligned properly. you will need some real help here.. i can invoice you something reasonable... but you need to warned that there will be a lot of hobbits involved, and their time is not cheap!


card output jack prolly shot, check balance, replace card.

NOTE that many cards have both line and speaker outputs (yep 2... count em TWO output options)... check if you have this and maybe move the headphones to the other port... get a few more years from it...

easy troubleshooting is easy!

[Darktalyn1]

Moving it to the other output fixed it, thanks!

my sound card is pretty old now, I think the oldest part of my current computer so I guess I shouldn't be surprised its dying

Hopefully I can eek another year or two out of it

[fyrephlie]

yeah... sound cards are one of them things people usually think about last unless they are an audiophile or have more money than i do. i don't mind stereo sound so i don't care if i have an audigy or sb live! (hehe)... try not to beat on the other output too much and you should get some good time out of it.

[Gammaray]

Nah fyre, my network card is the last thing I think of. I've had the same NIC for the last 5 builds over 7 or 8 years now.

heh, my motherboard has integrated gigabit LAN and I still plug my trusty old 3Com 10/100 in and use that. Wonder how much longer it will hold up?

The only reason I upgraded my sound was due to windoze XP and Aureal didn't play nice at all.

[fyrephlie]

Nah fyre, my network card is the last thing I think of. I've had the same NIC for the last 5 builds over 7 or 8 years now.

heh, my motherboard has integrated gigabit LAN and I still plug my trusty old 3Com 10/100 in and use that. Wonder how much longer it will hold up?

The only reason I upgraded my sound was due to windoze XP and Aureal didn't play nice at all.

u know, that is true... good point. the only exception are those people who are all over the wireless networking... but yeah ... i don't usually thinking about my nic cards much...