Sound does not play through speakers/headphones

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Level 1

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Sound does not play through speakers/headphones

My MB will play sound through the internal speakers however when headphones/speakers and plugged in no sound plays. I have verified that the speakers and headphones are working properly. I had been using headphones for several months successfully but a day ago the sound just cut out. In the Sound Control it still recognizes my headphones when I plug them in.

After wading through the forums for a little while I have come to suspect that I'm having a problem with my logic board however I was wondering if somebody would be able to confirm this for me or figure out what is wrong. Thank you very much any help is appreciated.

Macbook Aluminum, Mac OS X (10.5.7), 2.5 GHz, 4 GB RAM

Posted on Jun 5, 2009 8:55 PM

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Answer 1

Waymen

Level 5

5,722 points

Jun 6, 2009 12:03 PM in response to Scott.i.e.

I know it is obvious, but you should make certain that mute isn't set for the external audio port (there are two independent volume and mute settings -- one which affects the headphones, the other for the internal speakers). Also, have you tried checking the audio setup in Apple's Audio MIDI Setup Utility? This program is located in /Applications/Utilities. You may want to toggle the values there (internal/external, volume down/up, mute on/off) to see if you can reset everything.

Lastly, you might try a reset of the MacBook's PRAM (since audio volume settings are stored there). Here is a link to Apple's support article on resetting the PRAM:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

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Answer 2

Scott.i.e. Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2009 1:37 PM in response to Waymen

Thanks, ya I had already gone through those to see if I could find anything. I had read about the PRAM reset however they recommended it as a last resort so perhaps I will have to try that next. I appreciate the help.

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Answer 3

NGoeke

Level 1

0 points

Aug 30, 2009 7:36 AM in response to Scott.i.e.

Hello. I've been able to play sound without problems through headphones or external speakers to date - the output always switched to these automatically until today. Now, sound output continues through internal speakers even if I plug in headphones or external speakers.
- I tested the headphones and speakers on other devices: they work fine.
- When I plug in headphones or speakers into the audio output port (I have verified that I'm not using the input jack) the devices are not detected and are not listed under the output tab in system preferences-sound.

I concluded from this that I probably had a problem with the audio port, so to test that I tried the following. I plugged a powered multi-USB device with ports for microphone line-in and headphone line-out into the USB port and switched it on. I verified that it was working by plugging a USB stick into the multi-USB device - this was recognised successfully, so the device was clearly working. I then plugged in headphones and speakers into the audio line-out on the multi USB device - but still no sound came through them (and tey were not listed among output devices) and the Mac continued using internal speakers.

What should I do? Does the latter test suggest that the problem does not lie with the audio port, or is my test not conclusive? What would you advise?

Many thanks indeed!

NG

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