How to disable read audio panel and make the front panel primary?

RhapsodyOfFire · 11 Oct 2013

Hello.
I am having a not so common issue of a problematic REAR audio panel jack. The microphone pin got stuck and broken into the rear/back microphone jack and now the OS/driver thinks there is a microphone in the back panel but I just want to be able to make the microphone work on the front panel without needing to buy an external audio card (usb/pci) and disabling the integrated one.
The motherboard is Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L and the audio driver allows me to change what is plugged into the microphone jack but there is no option to disable it. I can disable the whole audio card from within BIOS but that doesn't help much. I have working speakers on the rear panel but on the front when I plug them it just gives a constant buzzing noise (like short circuit from the broken pin). If I plug microphone on the front panel nothing happens. Also Windows 7 doesn't detect a second microphone and even if I disable the original microphone there is still buzzing only in the front panel. Changing any possible option in skype doesn't make the microphone work either. I installed the latest drivers from the official site so it is not a broken driver issue. I can choose the microphone to be "Line In" but if I choose the blue jack to be "microphone" the audio driver program says "this device type is not supported". I suppose there is some software/registry fix to this problem but searching on google everyone wants the vice-versa version of the problem/solution (disabling the front panel and working only with the rear panel).

fireberd · 11 Oct 2013

Nothing that I know of to fix that other than dig out the piece of pin that's stuck in the jack. I have a Gigabyte motherboard (different model) and RealTek and there is no option for what you want to do.

The jacks are enclosed, in most cases, so pushing it out from the back is probably not an option. I've seen some cases where users have got a broken pin out of a jack with a magnet. In other cases putting a small amount of glue on a probe and inserting it into the jack and gluing to the pin has got it out. Both of these are long shots but something to consider.

RhapsodyOfFire · 13 Oct 2013

I've simply placed a new usb sound card. Thanks for the explanations fireberd. The time to find a solution other than new card and disable the old one wasn't worth it.