Inspiron 17R Headphones not recognized

Hi,

Welcome to the Dell Community Forum,

Please try connecting any other head phones / external speaker in order to check the functionality.
You might also try un-installing the audio driver from Device manager and re-install the same from our support site here http://dell.to/1hcxG98 . Type in the Service Tag, click on Drivers and select the OS type in order to install the audio driver.

The driver identified will NOT install properly. Now, I do not have a audiodriver installed!

Hi,

Let us know if you tried connecting these headphones on any computer to check if the cable jack is functional.

the cable jack? I have never heard of such a thing. These are my iPhone earbuds. They work perfectly fine. I also plugged in other headphones - no sound from them either and the laptop speakers keep on playing.

the cable jack? I have never heard of such a thing.

I was wondering the same thing. I think it means the plug. In the U.S. we use the word "jack" to mean the female part that receives the plug, but that is an odd usage because "jack" is a male term. In other parts of the world "jack" implies the plug. To avoid confusion I try to use the terms plug and jack socket.

Anyway, I would test by switching from the vendor's audio driver to the Windows native driver. The vendor's driver is either Realtek or IDT, depending on which of the five 17R models you have.

1. Open the Device Manager (find it in the Control Panel, or type devmgmt.msc into the search box).
2. Expand the "Sound, video & game controllers" and right click on "Realtek High Definition Audio".
3. Select to "Update Driver Software".
4. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Click "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer".
6. Put a check in the box "Show compatible hardware" if not already checked.
7. In the list of devices, click "High Definition Audio" (the native driver).
8. Click "Next".
9. On the Update Driver Warning box, click "Yes" (install the driver).
10. Restart the laptop if prompted. If not prompted, then no need to restart.
[To get back to the Realtek driver, do it again but reverse the names in steps 2 and 7.]

Test using your earbuds if they worked with the laptop previously. If this is the first time you are using them with this laptop then test with headphones or buds of a different brand, because some Apple smart phone buds have non-standard pin assignments.

If you have the same symptoms with the native driver and with the vendor's driver, then there has probably been a failure of the hardware, perhaps the sensor in the jack socket that detects the presence of a plug.