Headphones left and right channels mixing

I have a pair of SteelSeries 3H USB headphones (or actually, headset). They're great but they've always had a little bit of a problem with the left and right channels switching around. Once in a while I'll start hearing the sound that's supposed to go to the right ear in my left, and vice versa. It only happens with my laptop, as I've tried it on a few other ones, which work perfectly. I don't think it's the driver's fault since I tried it with the same drivers on the other computers.

Anyone know what's up?

 

do they have a mix amp ? or a on board sound card ?

 

Yea, it has an on board sound card.

 

Assuming there's nothing odd going on at the computer end, seems to me it's a wiring problem in the headphones - maybe there's a short somewhere along the line.

 

Shouldn't be since it's worked fine on all other computers I've tried on though :/

 

Hmmm. Must be a codec problem in that case - I would contact warranty.

 

That is a strange situation, I first read the title of thread and thought oh its just the music, some music plays a lil in both ears to get a nice balance, but your situation sounds like cross wiring, whats the source material? and you've said you've used other headsets with your equipment and end up with a different result?

Also try reinstalling the driver, assuming because its a usb headset it came with a driver to run them.

 

I tried reinstalling the drivers, but that didn't really help. Same problem still persists.
Also, there's no warranty on this thing.

On a side note, before installing Windows 7, this headset would not work at all with vista. There would be MASSIVE crackling of the sound and just general crappiness. After I installed Windows 7, the headset started playing nice and worked, but then this happens. Maybe this little bit of info could help in diagnosis of the problem?

 

Two separate channels OP. Are you sure you're hearing what you're hearing? For authentication, get another objective (meaning don't prep them) unbiased party to give his opinion.

Incidentally sometimes a channel can be disattenuated (from problems in the connection or wiring) and you can hear sounds from that channel that seem like they're coming from the other channel that you didn't notice before.

 

I can confirm that they're coming out of the wrong channels, because when I configure them and run the sound test using Sounds -> Playback -> Configure Speakers, they come out at the wrong channels at times, and the right ones at other times.

 

That's easy enough to understand when you're talking about configuring an amp. However, in you situation it doesn't make sense as is, so I'm sorry I can't be of more help. Are you sure you're not leaving anything out?

 

Pretty sure there's nothing I left out, although I'm not too much of an expert at this. Am I being unclear in anything? Sorry if I am as I'm not even sure what's causing the problem =/