When external speakers are plugged in to headphone jack, sound randomly goes back to internal speakers or digital audio setting, then back again

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When external speakers are plugged in to headphone jack, sound randomly goes back to internal speakers or digital audio setting, then back again

I have an essentially new MacBook Pro with Lion and all updates applied, and am wondering if this is a hardware or software problem. Essentially with something plugged into the headphone jack, things work as they are supposed to for a while, then the sound will switch back to internal speakers, or sometimes 'digital out' (I can watch it change in the system settings), and then often switch back. It doesn't seem to follow any sort of pattern or be related to any specific application that could be open, and happens with different sources of audio (iTunes, streaming from the web), and different external speakers or headphones plugged in.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.7), NA

Posted on Oct 21, 2011 3:43 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 21, 2011 11:48 PM in response to petegas4life

Sounds hardware related. If it's brand new, and you're still under warranty I would have it checked out.

I have not experienced this on my computer.

As I understand it, you have analog RCA outputs from an 1/8" to left and right RCA outputs. when you're randomly using the computer, it'll switch to internal speakers, then to digital audio, back to your stereo analog external speakers.

This should not be happening and if it's happening with streaming content (I am unaware of anything that streams in 5.1 digital audio) then this must be something that an apple specialist should look at and consider.

Does this happen with the headphone jack out? when you hold your finger over the headphone jack area does a red beam come out of it *blinking* or just on? This will be a good indicator that your audio hardware is faulty. are you running HDMI out?

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