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Inspiron E1505 - Sound Repairs?
Hi,
I have owned an Inspiron E1505 for about 4 years now and it has been good to me. Just the other day, however, there was an unfortunate accident. The laptop was knocked off of my bed onto the floor. Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem, since this computer seems to be built like a tank and has been banged up many times. This time, however, I had a pair of headphones plugged in and the headphone connector took the full force of the fall, pushing the headphone jack into the computer. Not good.
I noticed that a dialogue box came up as I nervously picked up the computer and it was the one that always comes up whenever you plug anything into the microphone jack. I didn't have anything plugged in here, but I thought I would mention it in case it is any help.
My problem now is that I can't get any sound from my computer...at all. The speakers don't work and nothing will come out of any pair of headphones (I can't even plug them in fully because the jack is pushed in). I checked and checked again the volume controls and still nothing.
I'm fairly sure that I broke something. My question is: does anyone have any estimate at all on how much it would cost to fix this? Could I do it myself? I don't really need a new laptop but I'm open to it if this is going to cost me more than $100 or so.
Thanks for any help!
Brian
Jim Coates
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July 30th, 2010 05:00
Brian,
On your model the jacks are on the motherboard, so when Dell does the repairs they replace the entire MB as that is easier than trying to replace the jacks. So replacing them is out.
In your case you "might" be able to reposition them enough to be able to get the plug all the way in. I would say there is a chance but no way of telling if there is much of one.
Even if that is successful you may no longer get audio from your speakers, only from the jack.. The popup box is indicating that the sense pin in the jack may be damaged. When it fails the computer always behaves as though there is a plug in the jack.
You have a couple of options short of a new computer or motherboard. To get audio from headphones or external speakers you could get a cheap usb audio interface.
Or to eliminate the jacks from the circuit and only get audio from the speakers, try installing an audio driver from Toshiba (driver qg600audiox from the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 -- you would need to google it) that bypasses the pins. You lose the functionality of both mic and output jacks, but the speakers should work again.
ejn63
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July 30th, 2010 06:00
You can open the system to check for damage, but the jack is likely broken from the mainboard - if so, the cost for the part will be $250-300.
The cheaper option would be to disable the onboard sound and use an external (Express Card or USB) sound device - these cost as little as $20-30.