Headphone Jack optical light on mystery
So this is weird. I thought I'd run it by the communities to see what comes up.
I have a 2007 MacBook - suddenly the digital output kicked on and won't turn off. Red light coming out of the headphone jack and no internal speaker controls indicate that the micro switch inside the jack is toggled. So I play and play with it and can't get it to come off. Finally I just pull the logic board and solder a new headphone jack in. Computer passes ASD, and BOOT CHIMES, but shortly after power on and boot to OS X the light comes back on (in a new jack, remember) and we are right back where we started.
So I tried Safe Mode, which of course disable audio controls
I tried SMC reset, EFI reset, clean install of OS X (it does the same thing when booting from a installer disc or any other OS X System volume)
Not a clue.
Is it possible that this is some funky board failure?
I guess it's possible, but the headphone jack works fine when plugged in, and as stated I get a boot chime at power on so something else is going on.
Check this thread...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9976427#9976427
Below is a response I posted a couple of months ago.
The red light is optical(digital) audio output, so you won't hear any sound and digital output by it's nature, does not allow volume control.
This seems to be a somewhat common problem with the alu Macbooks.
One of the fixes posted here is gently inserting a toothpick and slightly pushing/moving it around to see if the jack connection will switch back to analog speaker output. I would also try using several 1/8" jacks (headphones, speakers...etc) and see if plugging and unplugging them causes the jack to switch back. It's a mechanical fault and there's been enough of these problems that Apple mght do something about it.
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Similar Messages
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I couldn't plug in my headphone to my Mcbook Pro at all. I can only plug in half way of my headphone. At the same time, my headphone jack start to have red light on. Internal audio doesn't work, volume icon turn grey and don't let me do anything. Can anyone help?
f you can only plug your headphone jack in halfway, there is a problem with the jack. You should take it to an Apple store. The red light is telling you it is in digital audio mode, there is a micro switch that switches between analog and digital output. But seeing that you can not insert your headphone in, you Should take it the Apple store or an AASP.
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Headphone jack causing shut sowns
When I press the headphone jack with light pressure the phone shuts down...I found this when using headphones. Any pressure on the jack would shut the phone down.
Any service centers near South CArolina...Does Best Buy service these phones?Yes i have periodic this problem too on my Nokia N95-1 after upload last Firmware Version: 20.0.015.
Waiting for new firmware... ( and why we can't back to previous version... )
Message Edited by leonfreeman on 17-Jun-2008 10:26 AM
Nokia! Take a care for me and we real say THANK YOU NOKIA and you can collect a more money -
HI,
I have a red light in my headphone jack and I see "correct responses" listed as "when digital output is enabled speakers are disabled." That's all well and good but doens't really help. HOW do you disable the "digital output," get the red light to turn off and be able to hear through the speakers? What's the SOLUTION to the problem. Sorry, just a bit frustrated. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Best,
dpeast12Allegedly this can occur if there is a contaminant in the headphone jack that makes the computer believe there is an optical connection there, so it shuts off the internal speakers.
Try inserting and removing a headphone plug repeatedly. This ought to dislodge the junk, and seems to have fixed the problem for others. Hope it helps! -
No sound on Boot Camp (Windows 8) red light in the headphone jack ?
I have a MacBook Pro 9.2 (i7 3rd gen, HD4000, 750GB, 8GB) and i install Windows 8 Pro 64 bit. I have a issue with my headphone jack only when i use BootCamp i have the latest driver for it (download from bootcamp application OSX). I see that inside of the headphone jack there is a red light i think that it is the optical out of it. I try to reinstall the driver no succes. Now i need help to fix it
The red light means you have jammed the digital audio jack by inserting an analog plug too far. It is not a BootCamp issie--can happen to people without BootCamp. Here is the reason for the problem I posted in another thread:
Background, or "why this happens": the audio-out port on a modern Mac is digital and is held to high dimensional standards. Most headphones have an analog plug not made to such standards. The specific issue is the the "tip-to-stop shoulder" distance on many analog plugs is just a bit longer than on a digital one and jams the "mute" contact inside the port in the muted position. <deleted>'s advice to insert a plug and gently wiggle it in the horizontal plane is exactly on target unless you are under warranty, which would still necessitate a trip to an Apple store for service.
The best action is prevention. When connecting headphones (or external speakers), put on the headphones and have an audio track running BEFORE you insert the plug. Insert the plug slowly, listening for sound on both channels and, when you hear it, STOP INSERTING.
Bottom line is you do NOT want to insert any random plug "to the hilt" until you know it is dimensioned to fit a digital port.
My MacBook Pro has the same jack. I have a pair of decent-quality, name-brand headphones and their plug is not to spec. This picture shows their plug in the port at a position that delivers proper sound and does not let the plug fall out:
Note that the shoulder is about 1/16-inch from contacting the computer case. It is secure in this position.
Every plug is different. I have a pair of El Cheapo external speakers I picked up for US$2 at a yard sale and their plug fits perfectly on my Macs with a digital audio port. Go figure! -
Is it dangerous to look at the red light in the headphone jack?
I recently purchased an early 2009 model white MacBook. Today I was installing Windows on it and I noticed a red light coming out of the headphone jack. I thought there must be an LED in there to help you locate it in the dark. I was curious about it so I crouched down next to the computer and looked inside the jack to see what the deal was.
At the time I didn't know that there is such a thing as an optical audio jack. Obviously I now know that's what the red light was all about. Now I'm wondering if looking at that light could have injured my eyes. Is it a laser, an LED, or something else? Does anyone know how dangerous it is to look at that light? I looked directly at it from close range for perhaps 3-10 seconds, with eyeglasses on. I don't remember it seeming uncomfortable to look at.Thank you both for your replies.
GfulDedFan wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, that light shouldn't be on when the port is empty.
Yes, my understanding is that that light should only ever come on when there is a Toslink mini-plug adapter inserted into it (or at least a regular 3.5mm analog plug). However, like you said, I've seen a number of posts on the internet about that switch that turns on the digital output (red light) getting stuck in the on position (even without having plugged in a Toslink adapter). My understanding is that in my case the light came on because I was in the process of installing Windows and the driver for the audio hardware hadn't been installed yet.
GfulDedFan wrote:
As far as harmful rays, I doubt that it would be harmful because I've read about this audio problem before but never with a cornea damage attached to it.
I did look inside the jack directly at the light. I think it might be the retina that would be at risk if anything, but in any case, I sure hope nothing was damaged.
JoeyR wrote:
The power for the lasers used for digital audio is very low.
Is it a laser?
JoeyR wrote:
Especially if you didn't find it uncomfortably bright.
I don't recall having a reaction that it was uncomfortably bright and then having to force myself to look at it. If it had seemed uncomfortable I don't think I would have continued to look at it.
I don't think I actually became concerned about it until I found out that the light is for digital audio output and wondered if it is a laser. Not that I recommend looking right at a bright LED either. But I wasn't expecting a bright LED either (let alone a laser) -- like I said, my first thought was that there must be an LED inside to make the jack easy to locate in the dark (I was in a darkened room at the time.
JoeyR wrote:
If you've ever, even very briefly, had a low power laser pointer hit your eye, you'd realize it is super bright.
Fortunately I haven't, but someone who did have a laser pointer aimed at their eye told me they noticed it when they felt a burning sensation on their eye.
JoeyR wrote:
Any damage would almost always be nearly immediate. If you haven't had a problem, you're fine.
Do you think any damage would be readily apparent right away, in the form of pronounced discomfort or noticeable vision problem? -
Headphone Jack Light + Internal Speakers Gone?
When I took out the cable to my speakers from my PowerBook's headphone jack I noticed a red light inside the socket. I plugged the cable back in and the light turned off but came back on about half a second after I took it out again. There is a small LED inside the hole and I have never seen it before. The computer also stopped playing sound out of it's internal speakers completely and in the System Preferences sound menu there is only a line-out option, no internal speaker one. It seems like the light is telling me that I have to plug in speakers to hear sound, but why? The laptop has always worked fine until now so what has made it suddenly do this and how can I get the internal speakers working again?
The light is a fiber optic fiber. Your jack has a dual use. You can use a fober optical cable to get a digital line-out. Your problem may be related, but that's what the light is so don't go sticking anything in there (such as a paper clip) as so many people tend to do for some reason.
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occaisionaly a red light comes from my headphone jack and no sound will come from the speakers. the longer i stay on my computer the less the red light comes on and stops whatever it is i'm listening to at the time. i assume it's a setting problem, but i'm computer illiterate and i don't know what to change. i've talked to a few friends with macs about it and they've all never had a problem like this. what should i do to fix it?
Your Macbook has the ability to do optical audio out, so that is what the red light you are seeing is. Normally, an adapter is used for optical audio, but something must have happened to the headphone jack on your Macbook is it is showing without that adapter. Whenever that light is showing, you won't be able to use the headphone jack when that light is showing because it is not sending out that type of audio signal. I would suggest getting it fixed by either calling AppleCare, or making an appointment at the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store.
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Stuck in headphone (optical digital-out port) mode. What do I do? Plugging and unplugging headphone jack no help.
Do you see a red light in the headphone jack?? If you do, then the microswitch is stuck and you need to turn it off. Try poking it with a toothpick.
If you don't see a red light, then try resetting the SMC and PRAM and see if these helps. Here are the links.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379 -
No audio with 64 bit Vista Ultimate, red light in headphone jack
So I've been searching these forums for the last several hours, trying to find some helpful tidbit of knowledge to help me in this situation. I have whatever the latest version of bootcamp installed, and just did a full install of Windows Vista Ultimate (64 bit). With relative ease, I got everything working except for sound. With the generic driver off the Snow Leopard install disk, it tries to tell me it's working, but there is obviously no sound. The red light inside the headphone jack stays on all the time, and I have tried all the dumb tricks suggested for that issue too. I have unsuccessfully manually installed the latest realtek driver (2.28), and even tried both the 32 bit and the 64 bit. The 32 obviously does nothing, but with the 64 it tells me the device won't start, and shows that obnoxious yellow exclaimation point. Just trying to progress beyond this point so I can hear what I am trying to do in windows. Please help!
Same problem here. Daily I plug in speakers at the office, then rely on internal speakers while on the road/at home. I use old analogue speakers that go into the headphone jack.
I don't think i have any firewire audio out devices, but think i might put my hands on a USB one, so will try a varient of that trick.
tried the "wiggle the plug" solutions, but no luck.
I have to say, after something like 20+ years of using apple products (IIC was my first), my instinct here is that this is a software issue. People are getting sound out of a variety of devices (USB, Firewire, headphone plug) and the problem is intermittant but recurring. I don't wonder if it didn't start w/ the last iTunes update (to 4.9)? just a guess there. (although note that when i was fiddling w/ iTunes, the system speed and iTunes slowed way down.
Apple, please note there are two other related threads on this, one small at
Topic: "Sound optical out/ Headphone"
and a very large one (which may conflate several problems) at
Topic: "Entire sound on PB is gone ! " -
Help! red light from headphone jack and strange sound issues!
Help! I use my baby for listening to music and watching DVDs almost constantly when I'm working, and just the other day it started doing something really odd whenever I start doing something that involves sound!
If I'm listening to a song, watching a DVD, playing a game, whatever, as long as it involves sound it does this. What happens is, it'll be fine for up to a minute, and then it starts making this staticky skipping noise and losing the tracking on whatever it is I'm doing (game, song, DVD, etc.). This happens whether I've got headphones or speakers plugged in, or I'm using the laptop speakers. Also, a red light flashes from INSIDE the headphone jack with every staticky noise.
Everything else works fine. The problem doesn't appear as long as I'm not doing anything using sound, and it goes away about a minute after I stop using sound when it appears. It just started doing this yesterday, which was an entirely uneventful day and no different from normal. I traveled, but the laptop stayed in its case the whole time and didn't get dropped or jostled or anything.
I depend on my music to keep me sane! I can use my iPod for now, but I've got finals coming up and I need to use music while I study! HELP!if the red light is flashing at the output, it means that the computer is trying to output a digital optical signal.. which would explain why your audio is cutting in and out, cos it's flipping randomly between digital out and built in speaker, which means the speaker is being intermittently muted.
the reason for this is that the sensor in your audio output port is dodgy. this sensor is supposed to detect when you have a digital optical cable connected, and yours seems to just be going a bit nuts. fraid the only way to get it properly sorted is to take it in for a service. -
Red light from headphone jack--- no speaker volume
I am sure that I have done something wrong
but I no longer have any external sound or control of sound for that matter
and there is often a red light shooting from my headphone jack.
what must I do to regain control of my sounds.
thanks
1.67 g4 powerbook hi res Mac OS X (10.4.6)The red light from your headphone jack is probably from the 'optical digital output'.
I don't know that model of PB but does enabling the digital out turn the headphone out off? Check in the sound control panel.
Phil -
Red light shining out of Headphone jack
What does it mean if a red light is signing out of your headphone jack? I think this can't be good.
The optical digital output has tripped on in the absence of the cable. There was a thread here before - do a search for red light.
One answer here
Go to Control Panel > SigmaTell Audio > click on the 3rd tab. On the bottom there is SPDIF, uncheck the "Enable Digital Output" voila!
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2076875� -
How to make my computer send all the audio through optical audio cable instead of headphone jack?
Howdy,
To listen to online radios or CD's played from my computer, I used to connect the computer to my home entertainment system from the computer's headphone jack to the AUX port on my home entertainment system.
I now wanted to get better sound and purchased the optical audio cable. However, I don't know how to tell my computer to send the audio signal to the home entertainmeny system through the optical digital cable rather than through the headphone jack. If I just unplug the cable connecting the headphone jack and the AUX port and only have the PC and the system connected with the optical audio cable, I don't hear any sounds. I suspect the computer isn't sending any data through the optical audio port. I'm not able to find how I can adjust the settings on my computer so that from now all sounds are output through the optical audio.
1) I'd like to do that mainly for my HP desktop (configuration below) and any advice on how to do that would be appreciated.
2) I also have a HP laptop (configuration below) and was wondering if that would be doable too (even though it doesn't appear to have a audio out, but it has HDMI out - can one convert it to optical audio?
Thanks in advance!
My desktop is:
ENVY h8xt,
• Windows 8 64
• 3rd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 quad-core processor [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
• 12GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]
• 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
• No secondary hard drive
• 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7570 [DVI, HDMI, DP, VGA adapter]
• 300W Power supply
• SuperMulti DVD Burner
• Wireless-N LAN card (1x1)
• 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB 2.0 (front), 2 USB 3.0 (top)
• No Additional Office Software
• No additional Security Software
• No TV Tuner
• Beats Audio (tm) -- integrated studio quality sound
• HP USB volume control keyboard and mouse with Win 8 keyboard
• Adobe Premiere Elements & Photoshop Elements 10
And the laptop:
HP ENVY 15t Quad
• Windows 8.1 64
• 4th generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700MQ Processor
• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
• 15.6-inch diagonal Full HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1920x1080)
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (1 Dimm)
• 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
• 24GB flash Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
• No Additional Office Software
• Security Software Trial
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
• No Internal DVD or CD Drive
• Standard Keyboard
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam w/ integrated digital mic
• 802.11 AC WLAN and Bluetooth(R) [2x2]
This question was solved.
View Solution.Hello @_goma,
Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience!
I have read your post on how you are looking to make your computer send all the audio through an optical audio cable instead of the headphone jack, and I would be happy to assist you in this matter!
To configure your desktop to enable the optical audio cable, I recommend following the steps below:
Step 1. Click the Windows Key Button on your desktop
Step 2. Type "Control Panel"
Step 3. Select "Control Panel" in the top right-hand corner
Step 4. Select Sound
Step 5. Under the Playback tab, right-click the white area below the devices available
Step 6. Select "Show Disabled" and "Show Disconnected Devices"
Step 7. Connect your Optical Audio Cable
Step 8. Select your Optical Audio Cable as the default device and click "Enable"
Since it is not possible to convert the HDMI out to audio out on your notebook computer, it is unfortunate that the notebook is not able to connect with an optical audio cord.
Please re-post with the results of your troubleshooting, and I look forward to your reply!
Regards
MechPilot
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping! -
I put my volume on mute a few weeks ago, and I don't know if I have used it again since then or not, but now the volume will not unmute. There is a red light glowing out of the headphone jack. Sound through headphones works. I've tried updating and restarting my computer. Help?
No, not forceful - gentle.
A PRAM-reset might also help:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Immediately press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.Continue holding the keys down until the computer restarts, and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Try this a few times.
Stefan
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