Speakers won't mute when headphones plugged in

[Holly_Hobby]

Sort of defeats the purpose of headphones......

I have a brand new Twinhead laptop running XP Pro and Realtek audio device. I talked to Twinhead, they tested a laptop identical to mine and their speakers mute when using headphones. This was not helpful.

I googled it, seems to be a bug no one can fix. Any ideas?

I have something called Realtek HD Audio manager, can I just uninstall it or make something else default? Does my laptop have something in XP I can use instead? I'm so confused....

TIA

[Shardik]

1. Are you using the little speaker icon on the bottom right hand of your desktop?

That should work if you click on it and then click on mute.

[Holly_Hobby]

3. Thanks for your reply.....

If I mute the speakers, I also mute the headphones :)

[ChromeFoundry]

2. I found this as a temp solution...

The last post was some time ago, so perhaps you have worked around the problem. I have seen this issue and have gotten it to work again, but I haven't found out what causes it.

Go into Control Panel and open the Realtek Sound Effects Manager (or it might be labeled Realtek HD Audio Control Panel), once this panel is open, you can plug your headphones in and it will ask you what you have plugged in. Select "Headphones".

What might help (especially if you use your headphones a lot) is if you create a Realtek shortcut for your desktop or create a Quick Launch shortcut on the toolbar. This way you won't have to go into the Control Panel each time this happens.

Hope this helps...

[Holly_Hobby]

4. Thanks.....

When I plug in the headphones, the Realtek HD Audio Control panel automatically opens up, and asks what I'm plugging in. The headphones box is already clicked. Whether I leave it open or close it, I still get sound through both.

I give up, I spent 5 hours on this yesterday, all I find is people having the same problem with various success. The problem is, I'm afraid to look at and tweak BIOS or the registry, which may or may not work. This laptop was $1,200 and I don't want to do a restore if I goof it up, as it took me a few days to download the programs I use and tweak it.

Thanks, I appreciate it. :)

[Fumesucker]

5. A cheap workaround would be a USB audio card..

Just plug it in when you want to listen to headphones, unplug when you want speakers.

You can get one for under $10 on ebay.

[Holly_Hobby]

6. Great idea, thanks n/t