Bad Sensing Pin

If  you did not purchase the more costly warranty, you will need to send it back for repair.

Personally, if it was me, I'd just buy a headphone plug from  Radio Shack or cut off one from an old pair of headphones, insert it in the jack and be done with it.

Has Dell commented on this yet?

The history of the concept of a bad sense pin is this. When the laptops first appeared with HD audio codec on the motherboard, we started getting reports that seemed to be software failures -- based on the results Dell Diagnostics -- but no one could resolve these problems through software. But rarely Dell would replace the motherboards and that would fix the problem, which seemed to indicate a hardware failure (at that time none of the models had jack circuit boards so the entire MB had to be replaced -- which was Dell's standard practice for repairing all audio hardware problems, the logic being that whatever the problem might be, this will fix it). I had an inkling of what was going on and started reading Sigmatel data & specification sheets and discovered the new HD audio chips incorporated "IDT Universal Jacks technology" with impedance sensing, and a reference to "Sense Pin A". I saw that as the link connecting the symptoms of hardware & software failure, and I started posting the ideas that eventually became the faq. No one from Dell has ever made any comment as far as I know to either confirm or deny those ideas. The only proof I have that they are correct is that they have stood the test of time. I made up the concepts of "the bad sense pin" and "sense pin failure". I am not a technician as I state on my profile page. I have never had a jack apart and so do not know for certain that there is even an actual sense pin in there. I am sure that at one time there was a Sense Pin A, but that configuration may have been altered since then. For example there possibly could be impedance sensing via the regular jack contacts. So now I think of the concept of a "bad sense pin" more as a descriptive label that covers the area of failure of the sensing technology in the headphone jack. There is definitely a physical part of that technology that sometimes fails, by whatever name. But no, no comment from Dell.

Or, is this Super-Light-Duty sensing pin just par for the course?

Before the advent of reconfigurable jacks, the regular jacks also failed. Just based on the number of posts about it I feel that the failure rate was about the same, before and after HD. In either case it always seemed high to me compared to all of the devices I have owned in my lifetime with headphone jacks and none of those ever failed, and many of them were quite cheap devices. I don't know why the jacks have always seemed less robust than average. At least Dell is now using jack circuit boards on a lot of the new models so the MB does not always have to be replaced.

Did warranty cover? Did they dispatch a repairman?

Yes, warranty covers hardware failure. You will probably have to do some tests to prove that it is the hardware and not software. The ultimate test for this issue is to restore the laptop back to the original factory configuration. They should send a repair person if that is the type of warranty you have. I "think" your model has a jack circuit board so it should not require a new MB.

Wait... why would I buy a headphone plug and insert it? 

Still though, won't they be replacing the jack with the same type of jack that failed?

Yes, but they don't all fail.

Jim - Thanks for the long response. The detail is more than appreciated.

Still though, won't they be replacing the jack with the same type of jack that failed?

Ah. Well, at least that's SOME good news.

Thanks again for all your help.

Wait... why would I buy a headphone plug and insert it?

Because it fools the laptop into thinking there is a headphone plugged even when there isn't giving you the result that you want which is sound.

Or am I missing something here?

I think so...

The problem is that the computer thinks that headphones are plugged in ALL the time. This forces the computer speakers not to function. 

So, I need to do the opposite, which is have the computer know that there are NO headphones plugged in.

No problem - I appreciate the suggestions regardless!

I think so... The problem is that the computer thinks that headphones are plugged in ALL the time. This forces the computer speakers not to function.  So, I need to do the opposite, which is have the computer know that there are NO headphones plugged in.

Ah, I misunderstood what you mean. I thought you meant that you had sound coming out of the speaker when you had the headphone plugged in.

hello sir, i just bought a dell xps 15 and i searched around all the internet to find a solution to what it resulted to be the "BAD SENSING PIN" problem, so when today i found the problem (after my GF already used the laptop and i blamed her ) i fixed the problem by inserting a HEADPHONES, so it seems the problem is already fixed....so my question is should i report this problem to Dell and will my warranty fix this problem ?

DId you reinstall the audio drivers?:emotion-1:

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so it seems the problem is already fixed....so my question is should i report this problem to Dell and will my warranty fix this problem ?

No, not if there are currently no symptoms of a hardware failure. The problem might return in the future, and if it does then get Dell to fix it.

thank you very much so yes it seems the problem is fixed but if it returns i will send my laptop to dell thank you guys