What is going on with my software?

Somebody please diagnose what is wrong with my computer please. So on my laptop, the speakers  have not been working for about a year now. I have called dell and they installed different drivers and tried fixing software, but my speakers still weren't working. They sent people in with new parts, and they still did not work. So for the past year I have just used external speakers or headphones.

Then this evening I installed an application called, "Mumble" works similar to Skype. When I started running it and talking to my friends, I found that the speakers on my laptop magically work again. The weird part is, I could only hear my friends talking through my speakers. If I unplugged them, I was no longer able to hear them, but I was still able to hear all the music and sounds of the game we were playing through my laptop speakers. When I close Mumble, my laptop speakers stop working again, but if I open the application up, even if I am not talking to anybody, they work again.

Does anybody have a clue what is going on?

Install Gentoo.

Sounds like your audio is setup weird. Like you have two audio outputs and windows has set your Laptop speakers to default communication device.

Windows 7?

Can you post screen shots of your audio setup?

Does anybody have a clue what is going on?

In all seriousness, you haven't told us the most basic of information. What OS are you using? What model is your sound card? If you're using a Unix-like OS, you should be able to easily produce a dump of your system's hardware at the command line, which you can copypasta here. If you're using Windows, all bets are off.

Even if it is Windows, it should be curable. 

Quote from: EnglshGentleman on April 01, 2012, 09:19:02 PM

Does anybody have a clue what is going on?

In all seriousness, you haven't told us the most basic of information. What OS are you using? What model is your sound card? If you're using a Unix-like OS, you should be able to easily produce a dump of your system's hardware at the command line, which you can copypasta here. If you're using Windows, all bets are off.

I am using Windows 7. What I can tell you, is when I look at my audio panel, it constantly thinks that there is something plugged into a headphone port, even when there isn't. That is why I suspect that I can only hear things when I plug in headphones or external speakers. What blows my mind is that Mumble somehow tells my computer that there is nothing plugged into the port so that my computer uses its speakers once more, and yet simultaneously tells it there IS something plugged in so that I hear my friends through my external speakers.

I will post some screenshots of my audio settings later today, but I doubt that would be very helpful as that is the first place the tech support went to.

Based on your post, I suspect that the switch that tells the computer that your headphones are plugged in is not working.  Your computer acts like something is plugged into the jack, whether or not something is. 

Do the built in speakers work when Mumble is playing and the speakers are plugged in?  If so, the switch in your jack is stuck/shorted and the Mumble program probably overrides the computer's ability to disable the built in speakers.

Based on your post, I suspect that the switch that tells the computer that your headphones are plugged in is not working.  Your computer acts like something is plugged into the jack, whether or not something is. 

Do the built in speakers work when Mumble is playing and the speakers are plugged in?  If so, the switch in your jack is stuck/shorted and the Mumble program probably overrides the computer's ability to disable the built in speakers.

Yes, the built in speakers work when Mumble is running, and regardless of if the external speakers are plugged in. As I said, when Mumble is running, all the chat that is running through the program (my friends speaking) comes only out of the external speakers. All other sounds come out of my laptop internal speakers. I have actually suspected it is the headphone jack for a long time, but whenever I contact Dell they think it is the software or the motherboard or something. I got an entirely new motherboard and speakers for free because they didn't know what was wrong and essentially were throwing parts at me.

Right now I have Mumble opened up (though I am talking to nobody) so that I can listen to music without needing to plug in headphones or external speakers.

To break it down:

Mumble open and external speakers plugged in: I can hear all music and game sounds, and I can hear my friends.
Mumble open and external speakers not plugged in: I can hear all music and game sounds, but I cannot hear my friends.

Mumble closed and external speakers plugged in: All sounds work normally.
Mumble closed and no external speakers plugged in: No sound at all.

Yeah, either the jack is bad or the dell driver software is bad.

Go into control panel and select sound.

A window will pop up with your sound output devices.  Can you post a screenshot of that as well?(playback tab)

Ok, here is a screenshot. Also, a friend today tried disabling all startup programs and had me reboot my computer, but that also did not do anything. The second picture shows how it thinks there are headphones plugged into the first jack, even when there are none.

Well, either you have a short in your jack as jroa suggested or the software has a huge bug in it.

First step, make sure you have the software for your sound card ready.
Second step, uninstall the IDT HD sound software.  Let windows see if it can just use it's own drivers or the drivers that come with the card but not the whole software suite.
If that doesn't work, reinstall the software you uninstalled.

Then stick a paperclip into the headphone jack and kinda fish around.  I know it sounds weird but it sometimes works.

I'll try that first part once I figure out how to do it.

Then stick a paperclip into the headphone jack and kinda fish around.  I know it sounds weird but it sometimes works.

I have literally spent hours doing this when it first stopped working. Been there done that.

You could try booting Linux off a live CD and playing some music with it. If that works, at least you know the problem is in software. If it doesn't work, it's likely to be hardware.