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Audio CD-ROM Head Phones Problem

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by digital_dna 1 view

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This is annoying.

I can't seem to get any audio from my headphones when plugged into my CD-ROM Drive. I have tried several different things to get it to work all to no avail.

1.) I took the computer appart to make sure the audio cable wasconnected from the sound card to the CD-ROM Drive, it is!

2.) I disabled "Digital CD Audio" for that device. That didn't work.

3.) Under "Advanced Audio Properties" I tried setting it to "No Desktop speakers", "Audio Headphones", and "DesktopSpeakers". Non of those changes did anything towards solving my problem.

4.) Nothing is Muted.

Anyone know what the problem might be? I know of someone else with the same problem so I'm sure someone knows what the deal is. I hate to call DELL Techsupport for this. I haven't spoken to a compitent tech in years on their tech support line. Half can't even speak english.

EBCDIC

15 replies

by saihib

Does your CD player send music to speakers? Can you listen to music with those headphones connected to a different CD player. If so, something is probably wrong in the headphone jack of your CD player. They're pretty cheap to replace.

by digital_dna

Yes, I do hear music through the Speakers. The Headphone's work find when plugged into the sound card but not into the CD-ROM headphone output.

by thechas

1. Boot into DOS, or from a DOS floppy.

Verify that the CD drive will play CDs through the front panel headphone jack using the buttons on the front of the drive.

If it does not play in DOS, try disconnecting the Audio cable from the CD drive,and re-boot into DOS.

2. Once the CD drive plays CDs in DOS, you need to use a 'simple' CD player that simply functions as the front panel buttons.
There are several listed in the audio players section at www.nonags.com

Chas

by digital_dna

I only have one button on the front of my CD-ROM Drive that servers to open and close the tray. If I boot to DOS I will have no way of checking to make sure it is working. As far as I know I have no DOS based software to play the CD.

Also; I'm running Windows XP Professionaly.

Thanks

by yelhsa3840

ya if you use the cd player software it dont work most cdroms have 2 buttons on front one for play and skip and the other is stop and open plug the headphones in close the music software if it pops up and push the play button thats all

by guruofdos

The output jack on the front is purely an output from the DAC in the CD player. It is an identical output to the 4 pin audio connector on the rear of the drive except it passes through the volume control (small wheel on the front of the drive itself) and into a very low power headphone amplifier. Either you have the volume wheel turned down to minimum or the headphone amp is not working.

If the phones work in the sound card then there is nothing wrong with them. Try playing an audio CD again, but move the volume wheel during playback to see if you get any headphone output...even a hiss or crackle will be evident as you move the wheel if the amp is working.

by digital_dna

I tried turning up the volume on the drive itself but that didn't help. No Hiss or anything. The headphones work and are turned up all the way. The sound continues coming out of the speakers (It would probably continue to eminate from the speakers anway).

by thechas

I would try one of the players from nonags.
Some of them duplicate the function of the old Windows CD player.

See if the drive mfg offers a utility to play CDs with the drive.

It may even help if you can post the make and model of the drive as a comment, we may be able to find out how to make it work as you desire.

Chas

by thechas

Interesting!

Samsungs manual for the SC-140 series says that you need a program such as Windows Media Player in order to use the front panel volume control and headphone jack.

I don't know if they are using Media Player simply for controlling the CD drive, or if they need to generate the audio signal from the digital signal.

I assume that you can play CDs through the system speakers.

See if the CD still plays if you disconnect the 4 wire audio cable.
If they still play, then Windows is using the digital signal.

At this point, I really wonder if the electronics are actually there for the front panel jack.
If I had the player in front of me, I could open it up, and verify that it does indeed have a D-A converter connected tothe headphone jack, and the rear audio jack.
Unless you know electronics, and know what to look for, opening the drive will not help you, and if you are not careful, could disable the drive.

Chas

by digital_dna

Chas,

Well, after over a week I finally figured out what the problem was. Your last post (above) prompted me to disassemble my computer again. I removed the "Audio In" cable from the CD-ROM Drive and changed it with a new one thinking that might be the problem (it wasn't). One thing I found kind of weird was, the speakers continued to work with the audio cable disconnected from the CD-ROM.

Anyway, I decided to explore your theory on the "electronics? actually being there for the front panel jack". To test this, I removed the damn CD-ROM Drive and put in a Sony 52x drive. I made a few configuration changes (more on that in a few) and restarted. BOOM!!!, it works.. Yeeha..

On to the changes... I made one change to the computer settings I didn't make before. So, now was the time to check to find out if it was the configuration change that fixed the problem or if in fact the drives headphone connector was crap. I put the other CD-ROM back in the computer, connected the "Audio In" cable back up, made that change to the settings and restarted. BOOM AGAIN!!! It works.

By now your probably wondering what was causing the problem. Well, It was media player. To fix you have to go to media player, Tools, Options, Devices. Select the CD-ROM drive and disable Digital Audio and select Analog Audio instead. I had done this before from within Control Panel/Sound and Audio Devices. Apparently, disabling the Digital Audio for the drive there was only the first step. You still need to open Media Play and disable it there as well.

Before closing this post I have one question you might be able to answer for me. On my Sound Card I have a "AUX IN" connector. What the heck is that for? Currently there is no cable connecting it to anything.

Cheers
EBCDIC

by thechas

Since you had posted that you disabled the digital audio option, I didn't think that it would not be disabled in media player also.

Chalk one up for Big Brother Microsoft.

The Aux connector on your sound card is another 'line-level' input, thesame as the CD input.
You can use it for any other device that may require an internal audio connection.
Devices include:
Voice Modems:
TV and FM tuner cards:
DVD drives:

I use mine to have both my CD and CD-RW drives connected on one PC, and the CD and DVD drives on another.

If you open up the mixer panel, you should have an option to add Aux to the inputs.

Chas

by digital_dna

Chas,

Thanks for all the help. If not for you I'd probably still be looking for a solution or give up altogether.

Cheers
EBCDIC

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