Realtek falsely detects headphones in front panel

Hello all, just ran into an odd problem and hoped you might be able to offer some insight.

I built my computer in April, and up until just recently the computer was correctly detecting whether my headphones were plugged in the front panel. Within the past few days, Realtek has stopped being able to detect that I have removed the headphones. If I turn off auto-detection in the Realtek Audio Manager, my speakers work correctly. If I turn on auto-detection, I get no sound at all unless I have my headphones plugged in the front jack.

The attached file is a screenshot of the Realtek HD Audio Manater. Although I have nothing plugged in the front jack, notice that Realtek thinks that there is.

Another bit of oddness: if I have "disable front panel jack detection" selected, but then I unselect it, I get a message that I have "just unplugged a device from the audio jack." This message occurs whether I have the headphones plugged in the front jack or not.

I have tried reinstalling the correct Realtek drivers from my motherboard manufacturer's website.

I have considered trying to reassign the jack outputs (as described in this forum's sticky) so that the mic is the headphone jack, but I hoped there might be a software solution that I have not yet considered.

Any thoughts?

p5bdkw said:

Have you taken a look at the motherboard header for the FP connector?
It may be loose.

Just took the whole unit apart (the pins for the front panel header are underneath my Radeon 6950!), turned it back on, and Realtek still detects the phantom headphones.

Try this:
Open Realtek HD Audio Manager-Click Connector Settings-Disable front panel jack detection.

Cata:

Thanks for your post. I can disable jack detection, but then when I plug in headphones, I get sound from the speakers as well (thereby defeating the purpose of using headphones).

schenker said:

Cata:

Thanks for your post. I can disable jack detection, but then when I plug in headphones, I get sound from the speakers as well (thereby defeating the purpose of using headphones).

Do you have the same settings?

Here are screenshots of those two windows. I took these while jack detection was DISABLED, but I have not otherwise changed any settings.

Dwarf said:

Only a true HD front panel is able to disable the speakers attached to the motherboard sockets when headphones are inserted into the headphone socket. See AC'97 and HD audio front panel layouts

The front panel on this case (Antec 300) has wires that lead first to an HD header, and then continue out to an AC'97 header. The HD header is connected to the appropriate HD audio connectors on the motherboard (ASRock 870 Extreme3).

Even if this is not "true HD" (which is beyond my level of tech expertise to determine), the computer would correctly shut off the speakers (connected to the back of the case) when headphones were inserted, and would correctly turn the speakers back on when the headphones were removed. Now, the only way to get the rear speakers to turn on is to DISABLE jack detection. When this happens, plugging in a headset simply replicates the sound coming from the speakers, it does not turn them off.