Headphones not being recognized correctly or playing sound

Howdy-hey, everybody.

Lately, my Acer Aspire laptop hasn't been able to play sound from headphones, or recognize that I have headphones/earbuds plugged into the headphone jack. A scan for my headphones from the "Add a device" option doesn't turn up anything. In fact, the last solution I tried somehow recognizes headphones as a recording device, akin to my laptop's built-in microphone.

I've been searching everywhere for a solution, but nothing I've found seems to work. I've tried reinstalling the audio drivers from Acer's website, but even with a successful reinstall, it doesn't appear to do anything. I've hit a brick wall trying to find a solution, and I hope that someone who knows more about this stuff than I do can help me out with this issue.

My audio driver is RealTek High Definition Audio, and I'm running Windows 7 Home Professional 64-bit. Also, when I tried one solution, I found something called "Stereo Mix" on my recording devices. I don't know what it is, but I do not believe that it was there before I reinstalled the RealTek drivers. All I know is that it is set as my default device in the recording devices tab.

Some pics of my current settings, specifically for the Stereo Mix, in case something's wrong there:

fireberd said:

Stereo Mix is the correct default Recording device. If you ever want to record streaming audio from the internet you must have the Stereo Mix. Also, with the Stereo Mix set as the default recording device, any input is heard and can be recorded (e.g. Mic or Line In).

The Stereo Mix has nothing to do with the Playback functions.

Has the headphone ever worked? Or is this something that recently happened? Makes a difference for troubleshooting.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks, fireberd. Also, my headphones have worked in the past, but the jack stopped working a couple of months ago. IIRC, my laptop was on (with headphones plugged in) when it fell off of a table I sat it on while I left the room for a moment (more than likely, somebody walked by and bumped it off while I was occupied). The headphones seemed to work when I picked it up (albeit the jack was bent at a small angle when I checked it for damage, but it still plugged in smoothly).

The next day, though, all headphones stopped producing sound. I tested the jack with the headphones that were in the laptop the night before, as well as a new pair of earbuds my brother had, but neither of them worked. I get the feeling that the impact of the landing probably did something to the headphone jack that caused it to malfunction.