No sound out of MacBook speakers & red LED in Headphone jack

[SCMaverick]

Just this past weekend after watching a DVD (used the headphone jack to listen) I am no longer able to hear anything out of the speakers. I also now have a red LED light shining through the headphone jack. Under the 'Sound' option in System Preferences, it says "Digital Out" instead of "Internal Speakers".
I've called Tech Support and they haven't been able to help me. My next option is sending my laptop back in to them for service. I'd like to see if there if there is somebody out there that has had this same issue before I lose the laptop for atleast a week.
Any thoughts??

[andrewfee]

Try plugging some headphones in (or your Toslink lead, if that's what you used) and slightly wiggling the lead as you pull it out. (be gentle though)

I found that sometimes (pretty rarely) my Powerbook would get stuck on the headphone setting after listening to headphones on it, and this sorted things out. Only seemed to do it when it was new, it's fine now though.

[SCMaverick]

Thanks for the suggestion, however that didn't seem to help. I tried that about 5 times to no avail.
Any other thoughts or suggestions??

[brady.ca]

I'm having the same bad day. I've got no sound from my speakers and a little red light shining out my jack (sounds serious huh?).

In the sounds menu, I don't have the option to switch to my internal speaks. Only digital output is present. Now I can't hear anything. All because I just used some headphones in the jack. Nice.

On top of that, my DVD player isn't reading DVDs. Totally unrelated. But still. I need to take this piece a' dirt back but I'm in Germany for the next month and I'm stuck with it. Who needs DVDs or sound in a computer these days anyway. I wish Apple could help, but I couldn't find anything on the Apple site. Does anybody have a solution for either of these problems?

Cheers.

[brady.ca]

:rolleyes:
I found a fix for the red light problem. I'm not sure if I like it, but it works. After reading forum thread after forum thread of users that had this problem, I found a dude who fixed his jack with a rubber ended bobby pin. It seems a sensor gets bent (?) and the system thinks your digital external line is still plugged in. I took the butt end of a matchstick and tickled inside the jack. My red light went out. My internal speakers work again. Whatever.

[CBennett]

I tried the headphone jiggle to no avail, but the matchstick method worked perfectly. Thanks.

[madsstenhoj]

It worked for me too. Not with a matchstick, but with a little bronze stick. I found that it was in the top of the headphone jack input the switch was placed, and it needed only a gentle push to be helped back to ordinary analog status...

[monlam]

I got the same problem today.
I tried to reset PRAM and NVRAM, and it changed nothing.

Finally, I took in and out the headset jack 4/5 times and the red light switched off.
And the internal speakers began working again.

Bye and thanks!

[Pants Dragon]

That happened on my MBP. I fixed it with a paper clip. A metal one. Probably not the best idea. :p

[cardiac dave]

Just this past weekend after watching a DVD (used the headphone jack to listen) I am no longer able to hear anything out of the speakers. I also now have a red LED light shining through the headphone jack. Under the 'Sound' option in System Preferences, it says "Digital Out" instead of "Internal Speakers".


Just to clarify... that 'red LED' IS the digital (Optical) interface - confirmed by the note under preferences that the 'Digital Out' is enabled.

Jiggling the headphone plug, or using the match/pin trick should release the microswitch that turns the Digital Output on.

I'm surprised that Tech Support wouldn't come to this conclusion right away - the symptoms you described were pretty specific. Was it AppleCare you contacted?

[bluzharp]

Me too folks! Happened just now. Matchstick trick worked, but what the hell???!!! I paid $1300 for my 13 in. MacBook in June. This is an unacceptible way to "fix" the problem. I'm gonna milk my warrenty for all its worth.

[Kamera RAWr]

S**t happens. Your computer isn't broken.

I had this same thing happen to me. Plugged headphones back in, pulled it out... problem solved. :)

[mburgur]

Had this problem. with my Macbook pro.....simply plug and unplug phone jack in rapidly several times until the red light close....after go to pref. ....sound...select internal speakers and it works for me!

[Gleidus]

same thing happened to me

the only thing I had was the inside of a pen

I tried being gentle at first but it wouldn't do anything so after jamming it it finally worked. Tested with head phones once again :cool:

thank god for these forums or i'd be driving to the apple store right now
Stupid piece of junk!