mac question

B

bosindy

Veteran
I wonder if anyone has had this problem. My sound stopped working from the internal speakers on my macbook pro. Sound works on the headphones but it seems locked off when they are not in. Also there is a red light in the headphone jack hole.


any thoughts would be appreciated.

Jim
 
Jim:

Have you looked in the system preferences pane for audio?

There might be a clue there is you've not looked there.
 
Jim, if you have checked in the system preferences pane and found that built-in audio is no longer an option, I have some not-so-good news for you.

My Macbook pro had the same issue - the headphone jack has a switch in it that turns out the digital audio out, and it is faulty in a lot of MBPs. The red light you see means that the switch is activated, so you can't use the built-tin speakers becaus the MBP is trying to send digital audio out. When you plug in the headphones, it switches off again, but you have to play sound through the headphones then.

I took my MBP to Tekserve in New York, where they determined that the I/O board had to be replaced because of the faulty headphone jack. This part is not always readily available from Apple, and it took them four weeks to ship it to Tekserve because Apple was waiting on the manufacturer of the part to make more. I finally got it fixed and now it works like a charm, but I am nervous that this will happen again.

If you search google for this, you will turn up some results in forums complaining of exactly what I just described - it happens quite a bit. In my case, I delayed the repair until even the headphones stopped working. Not sure if this wil happen to you too. If your MBP is still under warranty, send it in.

Many folks in other forums have suggested that you can stick a toothpick into the headphone jack to flip that digital audio switch off. Obviously, it is a bad idea to stick anything remotely sharp into the headphone jack if you intend to keep your warranty valid. I did not try it (and I hope you won't either).
 
Will Clegg said:
Jim, if you have checked in the system preferences pane and found that built-in audio is no longer an option, I have some not-so-good news for you.

My Macbook pro had the same issue - the headphone jack has a switch in it that turns out the digital audio out, and it is faulty in a lot of MBPs. The red light you see means that the switch is activated, so you can't use the built-tin speakers becaus the MBP is trying to send digital audio out. When you plug in the headphones, it switches off again, but you have to play sound through the headphones then.

I took my MBP to Tekserve in New York, where they determined that the I/O board had to be replaced because of the faulty headphone jack. This part is not always readily available from Apple, and it took them four weeks to ship it to Tekserve because Apple was waiting on the manufacturer of the part to make more. I finally got it fixed and now it works like a charm, but I am nervous that this will happen again.

If you search google for this, you will turn up some results in forums complaining of exactly what I just described - it happens quite a bit. In my case, I delayed the repair until even the headphones stopped working. Not sure if this wil happen to you too. If your MBP is still under warranty, send it in.

Many folks in other forums have suggested that you can stick a toothpick into the headphone jack to flip that digital audio switch off. Obviously, it is a bad idea to stick anything remotely sharp into the headphone jack if you intend to keep your warranty valid. I did not try it (and I hope you won't either).
Click to expand...

yikes, this is exactly what is happening. I am editing a project and have been using a headset a lot lately. I really can't do without the computer right now so I hope the headset doesn't stop working too. I have the apple care plan.

I have been having a little trouble with parallels booting down lately and saw something posted about people having issues with bootcap/windows and this happening with sound. Regardless, I guess I have to go to Mr. Apple.


Thanks for the response Will.

Thanks David for posting.

Jim
 
If your headphone jack goes too you could hook up a camera/deck via fire wire and hook up speakers to the camera/deck for audio monitoring.

Just an idea as a last resort.
 
I can do that, but it does interfere with portability. It's a minor inconvenience now for when I don't want to take extra steps to listen to something. If the headphone output goes though, it will be a major one. hopefully it won't.
 
audio jack problem with MBP

audio jack problem with MBP

I have the reverse - my internal speakers are working, but the jack is no longer working - for external speakers or earphones - I've tried several versions now. all settings within system preferences>audio seem to be correct.

any ideas?
 
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