Solved! sound degraded after laptop suffered fall

[blakekr]

yesterday my Acer Aspire 5560 took a rough hit falling a few feet. I had to partly dissassemble the case to put it back together, and one USB port became unusable. Otherwise, it seemed a little beaten and bruised but workable, but today I am noticing the sound has suffered some kind fo setback.

Today, playback Devices does not recognize headphones when plugged into the front jack. However, plugging in headphones DOES cause the external speakers to shut off, normally, just as before. However, the quality of sound coming through headphones is now noticeably worse than usual. In addition, the volume is much, much lower ... 30% was before verging on too high and now I can turn up headphones to 100% with no problem.

The main problem is the worse sound quality because I do some sound editing and can't hear the work well anymore. Being under the vague impression that this laptop's sound card is probably part of the mobo, it still obviously WORKS, in general, but something is not working as it did before.

I am almost wondering if to buy a new computer because I just cannot seem to nail down what the problem is exactly and I need to be able to hear. Any thoughts on worthwhile solutions (is a separate sound card feasible for this laptop?), or what the damage might have been?

 

[Wulffz]

It depends, because you disassembled the laptop there is a chance that you didn't reconnect the speakers correctly or forgot to reconnect them. That or the fall damaged some parts inside the laptop. If it's a really old laptop and you previously planned on getting a new one, now may be the time. You can't install an internal soundcard into your laptop but you could look into soundcards that go over USB if you still have a working one left. That or a headset that goes over USB instead of headphonejack.

 

[blakekr]

It depends, because you disassembled the laptop there is a chance that you didn't reconnect the speakers correctly or forgot to reconnect them. That or the fall damaged some parts inside the laptop. If it's a really old laptop and you previously planned on getting a new one, now may be the time. You can't install an internal soundcard into your laptop but you could look into soundcards that go over USB if you still have a working one left. That or a headset that goes over USB instead of headphonejack.

Thank you for this. I had a USB headset lying around which I hadn't thought to try out at all. It sounds the same as my jack headphones -- not very good but there is sound. Just worse than before. The bass in particular is missing. Maybe this implies it is the soundcard itself. I can open up the case again and look for loose connections but if both USB and jack sound are worse, does this imply it's the card itself?

Any opinons on the pros and cons of USB cards? I could go that route. Would it be possible to end up with better sound than originally?

(Unfortunately this laptop is only a month old to me and was pristine until yesterday!)

 

[Wulffz]

Sad to hear that it was a brand new PC. If the connectors are good, then it actually might be the onboard audio. A decent soundcard should work over USB to get better audio. That soundcard will process your audio instead of the onboard one.