Dell E6400 - No Sound from Headphone Jack

Working on a really old Dell E6400 laptop. The laptop speakers produce sound but when you plug in external speakers using the headphone jack, power supplied through USB port, there is no sound. When you look at the various sound panels nothing indicates the external speakers have been plugged in. Yes speakers work, tested on alternate system.

The system has Microsoft drivers for sound - High Definition Audio. Lots of reading on internet, think they should be IDT High Definition Audio. Went to Dell and found old Win 7 driver for sound. IDT_92HDXXX-HD-Audio_A03-R297613.exe. This is file listed in another thread here about crackling sound.

First install attempt failed. Set compatibility mode for exe to Win 7 and ran again, still failed. Internet seems to be littered with sound issue from these old IDT devices.

Wondering if any members with one of these older Dell devices knows a trick or two. All suggestions welcomed.

Running Windows 20H2, all maintenance applied. No start date for problem, client needs sound to be louder so bought a cheap pair of external speakers. This issue could have been present for years. As stated, speakers work on other systems.

Thanks

I have an E6410 with Win8.1 and couple weeks ago sent one with Win10 to Honduras as part of a donation of 4 Notebooks for Vision Beyond Borders. The main issue for folks, especially those just starting with Notebooks, is there is a hardware setting for a few things that the Operating System also has. One is for the brightness, one is for the Wireless control, one is for Volume, one for choosing the Projector or External Monitor or both at the same time. The Volume has to be set to max to allow the OS to have the best performance of it settings. The hardware is obtained with the Fn key and another so marked key, the jack on the 2 E6410 I dealt with seemed to be weak compared to a Desktop machine.

Caledon Ken said:

Working on a really old Dell E6400 laptop. The laptop speakers produce sound but when you plug in external speakers using the headphone jack, power supplied through USB port, there is no sound. When you look at the various sound panels nothing indicates the external speakers have been plugged in. Yes speakers work, tested on alternate system.

The system has Microsoft drivers for sound - High Definition Audio. Lots of reading on internet, think they should be IDT High Definition Audio. Went to Dell and found old Win 7 driver for sound. IDT_92HDXXX-HD-Audio_A03-R297613.exe. This is file listed in another thread here about crackling sound.

First install attempt failed. Set compatibility mode for exe to Win 7 and ran again, still failed. Internet seems to be littered with sound issue from these old IDT devices.

Wondering if any members with one of these older Dell devices knows a trick or two. All suggestions welcomed.

Running Windows 20H2, all maintenance applied. No start date for problem, client needs sound to be louder so bought a cheap pair of external speakers. This issue could have been present for years. As stated, speakers work on other systems.

Thanks

Good afternoon, Ken.

Do you have a headset that you could test the signal available at the jack? Unfortunately, sometimes these jacks are marginal quality.

I have an old Dell Studio 1747 and the center conductor (adapter data) on the power jack is intermittent. I must jam something under the plug to obtain connected & charging.

I don't recall which Sound card it has but I successfully installed all the drivers using Win7 compatibility mode.
My Dell currently has 1909 and fully functional.

I'll fire it up soon and check the Sound card.

I want to thank everyone who replied.


The customer just brought the laptop here with the speakers, I assembled and it worked.


Now I know we tried both jacks, remotely, and nothing worked.


So the problem will be marked solved. If they get home and it doesn't work I will re-open.


Thanks for all the support. Great forum.

That could have been it.


They took it home and it worked.


Likely a Picnic error (Problem in chair, not in computer)