Computer Detects Headphones That Aren't There

Hello, I have a Toshiba satellite running windows 7 home premium (64 bit).

For quite a while I've had an issue where my sound would randomly cut out.

I recently discovered (after much trial and error) that the cause of the issue is that my computer is detecting something plugged into the headphone jack when nothing is there. I very rarely use my headphones so this took a while to figure out, but when I plug them in after the speakers cut out, I can still hear everything playing in the headphones. Sometimes when I remove the headphones the sound starts playing the speakers again but not always.

I've checked to see if there is anything blocking the jack, and it's clean. What I would like to know is if there is a way to prevent my computer from automatically switching to headphones if it detects something plugged into the jack, or, if there isn't, a way to play audio out of both simultaneously. I could just keep using my headphones, but they are of rather low quality and my laptop's built in speakers sound much better.

Right clicking "Playback devices" only shows my speakers, and doesn't show my headphones (which are really nothing more than earbuds, but still) even when "show disabled devices" is selected.

I've gotten the jacks cleaned and the issue remains, is there a way to get the software to edit the settings if it's not on my machine (because naturally I'd have the one version that doesn't)? 90% of my time online is spent listening/watching music/videos and it's getting to the point where I'm seriously considering smashing the computer with a brick.

Since the switch over from headphone to speaker is a physical circuit make/break in the female side of the jack, there may be one of the contacts is misaligned and a change in temperature and or humidity is enough to switch the output.
Art.

Today I discovered by accident that switching from the playback tab to the recording tab under the sounds menu (brought up by right clicking the speaker icon) will cause sound to start playing again much like plugging and unplugging headphones will. This only works if the mic is enabled. Disabling the mic wont cut out the sound but will prevent the trick from working when it eventually does.

Messing with the built in mic settings messed with the sound a bit too (sometimes cutting it out). I reset everything to default after playing around because it didn't fix the problem. Could I have a software issue instead? I had my headphone jacks removed and cleaned and they are perfectly fine.

did you try uninstalling and reinstalling the audio drivers? If not maybe reinstalling the operating system

Re-installing the drivers was the first thing I tried (probably should have said that).

I did a factory reset on my computer about a week ago for an unrelated problem and that didn't fix this issue.

Im having this same exact issue! I know what you are going through. I was hoping you had a fix for it.