Issue with Audio Redirection

Alright, this might take awhile to explain, so I'll split it into two parts: my issue and what I have tried.

Issue:
A nice feature of Windows 7 that I realized was that when I plug my headphones into the front audio jack, sound would of course play through the headphones but also the sound through the speakers, which is connected to the rear jack, stops. Now, however, sound will not come through the rear jack but will only come out through the front jack. This irritates me to no end. I basically want it the way it was originally.

Attempts:
Well, from the start, I had been using the default MS audio drivers as I had not really cared for any extra audio features. The way it was was how I liked it. So, after receiving this issue, I attempted to install the VIA drivers for the audio chipset of my mobo. That didn't resolve anything. Actually, doing so only changed the sound setup so that the rear and front jacks show up separately as Speakers and Heaphones in the Sound configuration. This wasn't exactly what I wanted. So, next was to install the VIA software, HD Deck (or whatever it was). Now, fiddling with the settings of that, I could change it from the separate speakers/headphones configuration to other configurations, such as having sound come out through both devices simultaneously. Luckily, I thought at the time, I found an option that would allow for what I really wanted: sound to be redirected from the rear jack to the front jack when the front jack is in use. However, when I change to this configuration, the same issue I had before, where sound would not come out through the rear jack ever, came back. At this point, I came under the suspicion that the way Windows naturally handles sound through multiple audio ports no longer functions correctly. Doing a SFC command in a command-line several times has not helped any, and I can't find anything else related to my situation. Lastly, by the suggestion from my brother, I disconnected the front audio connection from my mobo and started Windows. Sound came out through the rear jack perfectly fine. But, stupidly, when I reconnect the front jack, the issue just comes right back. Here, I'm completely out of ideas.

So, does anyone have any ideas as to what I could do before I just kick the bucket and reinstall Windows?

Well, I have been reading about the differences between HD Audio and AC97. I read that HD Audio allows basically for the front to mute the rear. Is it possible that for some odd reason this is always being triggered or something? I know that the front audio jack might be a bit broken in some way or another, since my headphone jack has been pulled out from it at odd angles and varying strengths by accident on multiple occasions.

Edit: From what I can tell, it does look like my front audio panel thinks there's a audio device connected when there isn't and that's causing the rear audio to be muted when I used HD Audio. Again, can this be caused by a bad audio jack?