setting up headphones with mic, in alternate speaker ports

[Guest]

ok, i need a little help here. a friend of mine has just recently bought a
set of headphones with a built in microphone. they have both ports in the
face, and the rear of the box. if the headphones and mic are plugged in at
the back, they work but they have to unplug the main speakers. i'm not sure
if the ports at the front work or not but it appears they don't, or the ports
just aren't set up properly. i'm not sure how to set up the front ports and
i've tried using the headset in the front ports with unplugging the speakers
at the back. although the point is that they'd like to use the headphones and
mic while the speakers are plugged in still, it would be a nuisance having to
unplug the speakers at the back just to plug the headset in.

if anyone has an idea or knows how to fix the problem then the help is
greatly appreciated.. Thank - Trev

 

[Guest]

have you resolved your
headphone problem because i have the same

 

[Guest]

No, not yet sorry... just been waiting for an asnswer... dunno how long it
will take.. who the heck would be on the computer answering our questions on
a saturday night? lol, oh well... wen i get an answer i'll let ya know

 

[D.Currie]

ok, i need a little help here. a friend of mine has just recently bought a
set of headphones with a built in microphone. they have both ports in the
face, and the rear of the box. if the headphones and mic are plugged in at
the back, they work but they have to unplug the main speakers. i'm not
sure
if the ports at the front work or not but it appears they don't, or the
ports
just aren't set up properly. i'm not sure how to set up the front ports
and
i've tried using the headset in the front ports with unplugging the
speakers
at the back. although the point is that they'd like to use the headphones
and
mic while the speakers are plugged in still, it would be a nuisance having
to
unplug the speakers at the back just to plug the headset in.

if anyone has an idea or knows how to fix the problem then the help is
greatly appreciated.. Thank - Trev

Just because there are jacks on the front of the case, it doesn't mean
they're actually plugged in to anything to make them work. The two best ways
to find out if they're even supposed to work it to look at whatever manual
came with the computer or open the case and see if those jacks are actually
connected to anything. If they're supposed to work, and you aren't getting
sound, the next thing to look at is the whatever configuration software
there is for the sound. It may be as simple as turning up the volume for
those ports, or you may need to disable the back ones to make the front ones
work. How you do that depends on the sound card and the software that came
with it. If it's onboard sound instead of a sound card, you may need to go
into the bios to configure the sound.

As far as what can be plugged in where, that depends on how the sound card
works. It's not unusual to have a setup where plugging in a headphone will
mute the speaker output, but it seems that on yours the speakers mute the
headphones, or maybe it's just that both can't be used at the same time. If
you really want to have sound from the speakers and headphones at the same
time (which could cause feedback issues if you're also using the mic) you
can buy a splitter so you can plug the speakers and the headphones into the
same jack. It might not work well, though, for a variety of reasons. The
only way to know is to try it.

 

[pjp]

If I've understood you correctly, there's two sets of plug connectors, front
and back. The front appear to not work. Perhaps they've not been properly
connected to the motherboard inside the case?

That aside, the back ones work but in order to use the headphones they must
unplug their speakers. So ...

1 : Do the speakers have their own headphone jack on them? Most do. You'll
find most speakers automatically turn themselves off if you plug headphones
into that connection. If that isn't good enough, e.g. they want speakers to
remain on then ...

2 : go to radio shack and buy a y-connector/adapter (e.g. headphone
"sharing" etc. might be an acronym), plug that into the back of the pc and
then plug the speakers into one side and the headphones into the other. That
allows them to turn on/off the speakers using the speakers power button.
Caution as one should test if the sound card max's out the headphones volume
during normal "using speakers" mode, If so and there's risk of that
happening then they should be normally disconnected. Common sense prevails,
set sound card volume to what headphones like and use speakers own volume
control to adjust speakers as desired "should be safe enough". If instead
they elect to disconnect headphones normally then it might be easier to also
buy a short headphone extension cable (if y-connector/adapter is just the
"stubby" plug type), plug that into back of pc and then the
y-connector/headphones/speakers into the end of that. Saves messing behind
box as it's usually not that covenient plus easy to use either one or both
at users convenience. This is basically what I do to route my pc to my
stereo.