Hello,
Sorry if this is in the wrong place, as you can tell, I'm a newbie. Anyways, I'm having a bit of a problem with my headphones and speakers. It all started around a year ago. All of a sudden, my speakers stopped working, however, the headphones continued to work fine. Then, out of nowhere a few months later, my speakers magically began working again. Only problem is, my computer doesn't seem to recognize that I have headphones plugged in, so the speakers and headphones play sound at the same time. This is a major inconvenience because I like to listen to music and watch movies, but can't do so without disturbing others anymore. There might be something lodged in the headphone jack, as the headphones don't seem to go all the way in, but it still goes in enough to play sound through them. I've tried disabling the speakers themselves, but it blocks the sound from the headphones too.
So basically what I'm asking is, is there some way I can 'fool' the computer into thinking I've got headphones plugged in so I don't have to run both at the same time? Or any other way to fix it that doesn't involve high-cost repairs? Any help here would be so greatly appreciated!
Thanks
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm using a Gateway NV79 laptop running on Windows 7. It's a little over a year old.