Skype makes speakers make sound while headphones on

Question

hello! this is my first post on the forums
so i installed skype today on my brand new Hp DV7 pavillion-6197CA, (Windows 7 Home Premium) and when i get a call, or any message notification from it for that  matter, all sounds go through the laptop's speakers, even though im using my headphones 24/7, i fiddled with all the skype audio settings as much as i could but nothing the only solution i found was the disable the second speaker in my laptop so that skype couldonly use the main one, is there any other way to fix this? its been ruining all my skype conversations and its very annoying to have my laptop randomly make all sounds from my computer go to the speakers when skype has a notification for me >.<
i havent changed any audio setting in windows at all, i tried doing everything from skype, i even changed the default communications speaker in windows to the main laptop speaker but it skype still founda way to use the other, even though skype was also forced to use the default speaker >.< updating drivers through the hp support assistant did nothing either sadly.

Answer 1

i had these same issues with my Dell Studio XPS 1645 in 2009/2010. haha. pretty much the issue is that the IDT audio drivers are **bleep**ing insane buggy. I don't think there is a way to fix it. the problem comes down to probably disabling the "Communication" Device Output device, or Setting the Default Communication Device to the primary headphone/speaker device. Many HPs have two output devices, one for the headphones/speakers, and a second for the headset.
What is going on in Windows I think, is if nothing is connected via the headset port on your computer, the sound will get channeled through to the speakers. the main Windows sound that you are listening to will continue to channel through to the headphones because that is where the main sound was set up to get channeled through to. If it so so happens that you have a headset and headphones connected, i bet when SKype calls through, it will send it to the headset instead of your speakers.
Here's is how to fix it: try setting Skype's default output device to the headphone/speaker out, instead of the communication device. if this doesn't work. then. you just have to set the Default Communication device to be the speakers/headphones, and/or disable the headset output device. the whole thing is buggy, especially the code that deals with routing sound to headphones or internal speakers. they try to handle it all automatically, without providing any controls to manage it manually. I wish they redesigned the driver so that speakers and headphones and headset were all separate devices, so that you could choose where to send it yourself. like a button that says, "headphones" or "speakers" for each sound device. even if headphones were plugged in, you could still turn them off, or route sound to speakers manually. the automation of this feature is bugged..