have you tried connecting your headphone to laptop but is not working? I guess you must be sad and unhappy about that. If your Headphones Not Working On Laptop, don’t worry much. This page contains a guide to get it working.
If you work or game on your laptop, you may find the laptop’s built-in speakers subpar. In this case, you might always want to plug in your headphones whenever you need better sound quality. But what if you have to deal with headphones not working on a laptop?
There is nothing as annoying as getting interrupted in the middle of a Call of Duty game, just because your headphones won’t transmit the sound.
While this problem seems basic, it might be far more complicated than you think. The issue might be software-related, which is always easier to fix, or hardware-related, almost always requires the experienced help of a technician.
As the first step towards solving any computer-related issue is identifying what exactly happened, I’ll show you how to detect what’s causing the anomaly, and how to fix them.
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Why Are My Headphones Not Working On My Laptop?
There are many reasons why headphones may stop working on a laptop. Here are some of the most common reasons why your headphone may stop working on your laptop computer.
- Outdated or faulty drivers
Faulty drivers are the root cause of most headphone problems on a laptop, especially on Windows and Linux.
Sometimes, Windows Update could download incorrect drivers for your headphone jack, leading to a total breakdown of the device.
Also, outdated Bluetooth drivers can also make your Bluetooth headphones work incorrectly.
The next time you’re having trouble with your headphones, don’t rule out the impact of faulty drivers.
- Incorrect settings
Sometimes, you could be the one who has explicitly disabled the microphones from the Control Panel.
If you like to tinker with your sound options, you might have set some device other than the headphone as the default sound device, and computers are very obedient.
- Faulty headphones
Funnily enough, this might be the problem. While you may think that your laptop isn’t reading your headphones correctly, your headphone might be an erring device.
This is usually the easiest to fix, albeit you might have to buy other headphones.
- Faulty headphone jack
While you can fix a software issue by installing or rolling back an update, a faulty headphone jack will almost always require a visit to a technician.
Although it can be extremely unlikely, you might have spilled some liquid onto your laptop, affecting the headphone jack.
Enough of problem identification. In the next section, I’ll analyze each of these problems in detail, giving some solutions that have worked for others, and could potentially solve your problems too.
How to fix Headphone Not Working On Laptop
Is your headphone not working on your laptop?
Try each of these fixes to see if that’s the problem. Feel free to start from what you ‘think’ is the problem. You can also jump from one solution to another until you solve the problem.
One thing is certain; if you go through all of these processes, your headphones will be up, and working on your laptop is no time.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the solutions that won’t sell you an expensive driver updater software.
- Fix your drivers
Fixing your drivers isn’t a one-way thing. You might have to upgrade your drivers if you think they’re outdated.
On the other hand, if the problem with the headphones started after a Windows update, you might have to revert your sound drivers to the old ones.
If you’re having headphone issues on a used laptop, it is most probably related to outdated sound drivers. Here is how to upgrade your drivers specifically to fix your headphones problem.
- Open your Control Panel. You can press the Start button and start typing Control Panel until it shows up. Click on it or press Enter when it shows up.
- If you’ve not done that already, sort the Control Panel items by Large Icons. You can do this by clicking the ‘Category’ button after ‘View by’ at the top right.
- Select Device Manager from the list of icons. Since the options are arranged alphabetically, you shouldn’t have any issues finding Device Manager from the numerous options.
- From the list of devices listed in Device Manager, double click on ‘Sound, video, and game controllers’ to unveil some devices.
- One after the other, right-click on each device and select Properties. From the resulting windows, navigate on the driver tab and click on Update Driver. Wait for Windows Update to find the appropriate driver for this device and install it as necessary.
If the headphones still refuse to work after downloading these drivers, you should return to Device Manager and double click on ‘Audio inputs and outputs.’
For each of the devices under ‘Audio inputs and outputs,’ go to their properties and manually update their drivers. This should get your headphones working again.
If updating the drivers doesn’t fix the issue, you might want to revert back to the old drivers.
If you want to try reverting your drivers to fix your headphones not working issue, here are the steps to follow.
- Open Control Panel and navigate to Device Manager. The steps required to achieve this are outlined above.
- From the list of devices in the Device Manager, double click on ‘Sound, video, and game controllers.’
- Select each of the devices revealed, open their properties and navigate to the Driver tab. From the options in the tab, select ‘Roll Back Driver,’ and wait for the process to complete.
If updating and rolling back your drivers won’t fix the issue, then it’s not a problem with your drivers. You should move on to the next fix to get your headphones working as soon as possible.
- Ensure your headphones work
To be honest, nothing can be more annoying than rolling back every driver update and having to reinstall them again just because your headphones are faulty.
Your drivers may not be related to your problem. If you have a faulty headphone, hundreds of driver updates won’t make the headphone work.
However, you don’t just assume your headphones are dead. Before shopping for a new pair of headphones, you should try some other pair of functioning headphones on the computer.
If other headphones work, you might want to get yours fixed. Better still, you can shop for a new pair of headphones. Make sure you choose functioning ones (under warranty) this time.
If other headphones don’t work, your search for a fix to your ‘headphones not working on laptop’ is far from being over.
- Set the headphones as the default sound device
Sometimes, the computer might think you don’t want the headphones to work. Somewhere in the Control Panel, you can set a sound device as the default on your laptop.
When your headphones are plugged in, they should automatically change to the default sound device. When this doesn’t happen, you may think that the headphones don’t work.
Here is how to set your headphones as the default sound device on your Windows laptop.
- Right-click on the speaker icon on your taskbar and click on ‘Sound.’
- In the resulting windows, click on the ‘Playback’ tab and insert your headphones. Check the tab and ensure that the device is checked with a green mark.
- If the device isn’t checked with a green mark, right-click on the device and select ‘Enable.’ This should bring up the green mark.
- To set the device as the default sound device, click on the device to highlight it, and click on ‘Set Default,’ just before ‘Properties.’ If your headphones will work, they should start working once you click ‘Apply.’
This should fix the malfunctioning audio on your laptop. If this doesn’t fix it, we still have more solutions for you to try out.
- Run an anti-malware scan
If you’ve tried all you can to get your headphones working, it’s time to start thinking out of the box.
While there aren’t so many viruses that target sound devices, chances are high that you’ve encountered an unusual anomaly.
Firstly, you may want to update your laptop to the latest version of Windows. After all the malware definitions are updated, you can run a malware scan from Windows Defender to fix the problems with your headphones.
While it is very unlikely that this will fix the problem, it doesn’t hurt to try. The malware scan is free, and you have a real chance of fixing the issue with your computer’s headphones.
- Take the computer for repair
If you’ve tried everything above without success, it might be time to get some more technical eyes on your computer.
Before taking the computer to a technician for repairs, you might want to try some basic repairs yourself.
One thing that has worked for others is cleaning the headphone jack. If your headphone jack is clogged with dirt and dust, you might be having issues with your headphones.
Using a slightly stripped-down cotton swab, you can clean the inner parts of your headphone jack to remove the dust.
If it doesn’t work after this basic precaution, the best thing you can do is to take it to a technician for repairs.
In addition, Bluetooth headphones might be a bit more complicated than regular headphones. If you’re trying Bluetooth-enabled headphones, you want to make sure that your computer can read them correctly.
Some Windows 7 computers don’t work well with Bluetooth headsets. If you’re running Windows 7 on your computer, you might want to upgrade to the latest version of Windows or find a cable to connect the headphone to your computer.
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Conclusion
Putting on a pair of headphones while shooting away opponents may not make you a better player, but it sure does make you look cooler.
Imagine the dismay when those headphones don’t work.
We don’t want you to deal with headphones that don’t work, and we’ve created an extensive guide that teaches how to deal with a set of headphones not working on laptop.
If your headphones don’t work after trying all the fixes above, try them all again. There is no way it won’t work if you do them all correctly.