*M17xR3/R4 & M18xR1/R2* Internal Speakers not working after using Optical/external audio out

Okay so I am getting an Alienware M18x with my next paycheck, and I was also going to be getting an Astro A50 headset but it requires a toslink connection. Does anyone know if it comes with its own adapter to plug into the laptop or if I should buy one from Amazon or something? And if I need to buy one what is the exact name because I am seeing like Recoton Fiber Optic Toslink to 3.5mm Mini Adapter, is that it? I'd appreciate the help if I'm about to spend $3,500 on the Alienware and $299.99 on the Astro A50 headset.

 

mine didnt come with the adapter that is the likely culprit of the past issues.

 

As in your laptop didn't come with the adapter at all?

EDIT: Well, what I'm really asking is am I going to have to buy something like this to use a toslink headset? Hosa Technology TOSlink Optical Female to Mini-TOSlink GOP-490 A female toslink to male 3.5mm

 

Lost speaker function after removing headphone jack. Dell said reinstall drivers and SoundBlaster software. I already had done that and off course the problem continues. They want me do do a full operating system reinstall

I need to get this up the chain.

Just noticed that the sound comes back if I insert a CD. The physical act, not the playing from, makes the change

 

Hey Drifter, long time no see, brother. Other than this problem, I hope all has been well with you.

That reading from a script nonsense is for the birds. Reinstalling Windows to correct this is just a waste of time for customers. This is a hardware issue, and a known one at that. I'm not sure why they could not identify it as such in their knowledge base. One of the support reps in our community should be able to help you out... either Luis or Pablo, or Natalia.

Try this... insert the headphone jack. While holding side pressure, rapidly yank it out of the port a bunch of times and change directions on the side pressure each time. Mine got stuck once and this jarred the trigger pin loose again. If that doesn't do the trick, you're probably going to need a motherboard swap.

 

If this problem does apply to us then will we be charged for the motherboard if the computer IS under warranty but not under "accidental damage protection plan"?

 

Using your computer the way it is intended does not come under the accidental damage coverage. If you plug in a TOSLINK adapter or headphones into a jack that they are designed to work for and this "breaks" your system, that would be a hardware failure.

 

Brother Fox, good to hear from you again! Dell is replacing the motherboard on Friday. Not happy about major surgery. I wonder if the tech will bring paste? Hope this is a revised board

 

Motherboard install underway now. No snaps or cracks heard yet. Rep says - "wow, you got to take everything out". Here we go

The replacement motherboard is the exact same Rev00 so I'm not sure this has been worth it?

Well, the keyboard doesn’t light up now. The rep is coming back Monday to reconnect the wire. I ordered another 8 GB of ram for the occasion.

 

Brother Drifter! Glad you got it sorted. To the best of my knowledge there is only one motherboard with no revisions. Too bad that wire was left loose... not hard to reconnect it. Only need to removed the keyboard.

 

Up and running again

Thanks brother Fox!

 

I have this issue, currently on phone getting moved up the chain of people. Will let you know more info shortly.

Motherboard is going to be replaced, won't use the S/P DIF port again!

 

Is it safe to use a toslink adapter which I'm planning on buying from RadioShack? Would this cause any problems like it did for others who used the supplied adapter from Alienware? I have the m18x R2 if it makes any difference.

 

I cannot say with 100% certainty, but I think you'll be fine. I believe (cannot prove) that the adapter that was shipping with the M17xR3 and M18xR1 was dimensionally out of spec and caused the trigger pin to get jammed. It did not happen to everyone.

 

^ Thanks. I ordered a couple of them online. Hopefully it'll not cause any issues.

 

i have created an account to say i too had this issue. got my m17r3 in june of 2011 and never once used the spdif until just the other day. googling audio out after spdif alienware brought me here. I had this forum page pulled up on my system while i called alienware on the phone...the very first human i talked to asked me to connect with alien connect and when he took over my machine, he started reading the thread. he put me on hold for about 5 minutes and came back on and said that he spoke with a tech and his supervisor and that they would fix it no problem. I had a fedex box here the very next day from them, and i dropped it off at the fedex store and they started working on it the next day...

TL;DR
Have this thread open in your browser if tech support asks you to connect with them with Alien Connect. Their CS worked to fixed the problem without all the troubleshooting they normally have to do.

 

Sean, thanks for posting. I'm glad this Community was helpful in getting your problem resolved quickly. Sorry it happened, but glad it turned out to be hassle-free.

Welcome to the Community. Don't be a stranger. We would also be glad to hear that everything is great when your machine comes back.

 

Good Morning virtual friends! any idea about the below plastic black piece? it came inside of the AW box,
Regards

 

It's a converter for optical audio.

 

Please don't use it, as you may regret doing so. Toss it in the garbage.

You'll see why when I merge this into the thread your question is relevant to.

 

To be exact this is a 3.5mm optical jack to TOSLINK adapter plug. This doesn't convert anything. It just lets you connect another plug type.

 

Yes! And if you want to be sure it's truly dead, treat it with holy water!

 

Thank you for the answers. Every day we learn something.
Regards

 

Sent my machine off and received it back from Dell...They replaced my LCD lid (which was just fine to begin with), my bottom chassis (which was a little crooked), and a brand new power supply. Sadly, they did NOT fix the problem with the optical out. As soon as i got it out of the box i fired it up and checked. The IDT HD audio drivers were not installed, and when i did install them, same results as before. No audio from the onboard speakers. Will be sending it back AGAIN. Ill make sure to leave the HD drivers installed and leave a note inside the laptop with a description of the issue and a link to this thread so they will actually fix the jack...which i would assume means a new motherboard. If thats the case, when I get it back they will have replace almost the whole machine!

 

Having encountered the same issue, with no speaker sound after using the supplied SPDIF for the first time.

I contacted support, but not before hitting upon this thread (and others). However, the support person whom I spoke to would not rule out a windows issue and has demanded that I reinstall windows before they will take it any further.

Fantastic.

 

Wow, that's an unfortunate waste of time. Were you talking to the people in India or Costa Rica. If the former, they seem to only know how to read from a flow chart and give instructions from a script. The team is Costa Rica is way better, but they only provide service to this part of the world. UK, Europe and Asia (as far as I know) have to go through the lame outfit in India. The results from a OS reinstall can also be misleading, as the native drivers for Windows will sometimes restore audio from the speakers, but the full featured drivers for the sound card will not. So if you do reinstall Windows and it appears to work at first, be sure to install the appropriate drivers from Dell. Chances are the audio will stop working again.

Look back through this thread and you'll see examples of folks that were able to fix it by freeing the stuck trigger pin inside of the port. If you can get a thin wire or needle to reach in and get it un-stuck it will start working again. This happened to me once and I was able to fix it by inserting a headphone plug into the jack, yanking it out abruptly while holding side pressure on the plug. I did this repeatedly while changing the angle of pressure and after about a half dozen times the pin un-jammed and audio came back on again. I was running a song in the background with WMP and as soon as the pin released the speakers came on. Either method is worth a try. Just don't use the adapter any more if you get it working.

 

I wish I had seen this thread before I started using the SPDIF jack, and eventually ended up with disabled laptop speakers. However, I am glad I did finally arrive here and learned from others' experiences. I was able to solve the issue with a safety pin, prying the stuck trigger pin free, I suppose. Couldn't really tell what I was prying on, but it looked like a gold contact inside the jack, which I could "feel" with the tip of the safety pin.

I pulled on the gold contact a few times and the sound would come back on, then go back out when I stopped pulling. Did this a few times until I apparently pulled it out enough for the speakers to stay on after releasing the safety pin. Definitely was not interested in replacing my otherwise fully operational motherboard for this ridiculous, annoying issue.

Thanks to you all who posted this advice. I will never use the SPDIF port again!

 

Awesome! Thank you very much for posting about your success is getting the trigger pin unstuck.

 

Sent my M17xR3 off to dell once again with a description of what happened and the problem, left the IDT drivers installed and even taped the optical jack to the laptop lid. Will post back in a few days with results.

 

So bottom line is don't use the included adapter. How is this different from any other adapter in shape? Or should we just not use that port at all?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

I think the diameter was slightly too large which wedged the pin, normal adapters are probably built to a higher standard hence this excess wouldn't be there so they fit properly. I could be wrong though.

 

Ah, so with that said, what adapter should we use that won't cause this problem? If any.


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Just got my M17xR3 back from Dell...again. This time they DID replace the motherboard. All said and done, they had my laptop twice for a total of 2 weeks, and the chassis, LCD lid, power supply, and motherboard were replaced. A++ for Dell on this occasion. I couldnt be any more happy, but will never use another Dell TOSLINK adapter...

 

Any Chance can you make a video of how you did it? I'm sure it would help out a lot of people including me.

 

It's very simple. Get a headphone jack (on the end of your least favorite pair of headphones/earbuds), insert it into the port as deep as possible, then remove it quickly, with a small amount of pressure away from or towards yourself.

Insert, check that it's as deep as possible, remove while pushing away/towards lightly.

 

^^^Yes... exactly that way^^^

It may take more than a few attempts and side pressure up/down/left/right in the jack before the pin releases. Hopefully, that will work for you as it did for me. I did not need to use a thin wire/needle to do it, but some others have.

 

Good thing I saw this thread before making the mistake of hooking this up to my surround via optical...thanks for the info

 

ok issue one.. after bareley putting my head phone adapter in the wrong slot.. The digital one.. and i mean i barely got it in.. and i moved it to the correct one.. i got no sound.. well i did but static like an am radio..

so i went to try my built in speakers.. and nothing..

what ive done so far..

1. reinstalled all drivers..

2. reinstalled windows..

3. reflashed bios..

4. cleared and reflashed bios

so im lost lol...



and now to my holy crap moment.. I finally got my old Alienware D9t going.. and after putting windows 8 on it i checked drivers and screen resolution and was shocked to see that this thing is capable of 1440x1050 !!!! so way back then they had this resolution.. wow.. im impressed.. based on this i would think that we should be way more advanced on are resolution by now..

 

have fought this for months now installing software all of the common fixes, sound came and went then I finally noticed the red light in the SPDIF port and came to this thread.

It is indeed a problem of a switch that gets pushed out of shape and then does not close to reactivate the normal audio. I accidentally put a speaker jack in the port and that is when my problems started.

I am in the Philippines and there is no way I am going to send this back to Dell, especially with their reputation for timing and success on repairs so I started looking for a solution. I am an electronics engineer so my first thought was get to the contacts and solder the connecting points together, but the amount of dis assembly was more than I wanted to bother with so I inspected the port itself with a magnifying glass and a small flashlight.

If you look inside there is a stainless colored tab on the left, it is apparently a locking tab and has no effect.

On the right side just a few millimeters in there is a gold wire. I reasoned that if it could be deformed to break contact you could probably fix it if you could pry it up. I used a scalpel blade ground down with a grinder, but I think a standard sewing needle would work just as well. When I got under it it lifted up substantially, when I released it it fell back down but not as far, and my sound is back.

I had tried everything that worked before to no avail so I am certain bending the wire back into position fixed it. If your sound is gone and can't be recovered, what do you have to lose? It's not like you are going to void a warranty or anything, so it's worth a try.

 

Sweet! Thank you for sharing that this worked for you. It is similar to what others have done and it is really awesome having additional examples as confirmation.

Also, welcome to our Community. We look forward to hearing more from you in the days ahead.

 

Im thinking of connecting the internalspeakers to something like this via bluetooth internally, so that the speakers work. 20$, take it apart, stickt he bluetooth inside along with some power coupled from one of the sata ports or better yet, make it connected via sata to the mpcie that i don't use.

anyone thought of this?

my m17x-r4 basically works 100%fine aside from no sound comes from the speakers, yet the speakers are fine. The motherboard does not say anything is plugged inor what not. optical and analogue work fine when i use them, no issue. THOUGH - sound quality is abit tier then my m18x-r2. i dont know why but things sound .period.

 

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I don't feel the need to have to start a new thread on a similar subject.

I'm wanting to connect my Astro A50s to my M18x R2 and for the optical cable, I was looking at getting one of these 2:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/361080286746?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/380896741572?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

Do you think they'll work without causing any issues? I don't have the little connector that came with the R2, nor would I want to put it in as all the troubles it could cost. Has anyone found an adapter or cable that does work without causing any issues?

 

Might be a risk in using it and have it messed up, but I think the problem was the adapter provided by Alienware was causing the pin to jam in the port.

 

Bumped...