audio device problem

[waterskier2007]

so i searched the forum for any related information and i could not find anything. i am having a problem with my audio. my brother had the same problem with the computer at our house about a week ago.

it seems that my computer is not recognizing the speakers/audio out device. when i have headphones in the sound works fine. when i dont and i go to change the volume, i get this



then when i look in the sound tab of system preferences, i see this



its as if there is no output device

when my brother had the problem i went home, looked for any software updates, and installed them. they had been lacking a bunch and so i thought that maybe it was the problem. after the computer restarted it was back to normal. now i am having this problem, and i have all the software updates, i restarted and even shut down my computer. this is a major problem so any help would be appreciated

 

[Makosuke]

What kind of speakers are you plugging in, or is this even happening with the internals?

It's showing up as if you have an optical audio cable plugged in; that's what "Digital out" means, and that would explain why you can't adjust the volume--when you're outputting a digital audio signal, the volume is only adjusted at the amplifier since it's "raw" data going out of the Mac.

If you're attaching a regular (non-optical) speaker amplifier, maybe it has a funky miniplug that the Mac is reading as if it's one of the mini-toslink optical ones--I expect that would cause the behavior you're seeing.

If you suspect that might be the case, maybe try getting an extension cable from RadioShack or the like to add in, so that you've got a different plug going into the Mac. If that fixes it, that explains the problem you're seeing with both computers.

[Edit: For reference, here's a picture of a regular 1/8" miniplug and a mini-toslink one.]

 

[waterskier2007]

there is nothing plugged in

thats the problem

 

[faintember]

I believe there was a thread about this recently, but a search didn't find it. Either way, the OP posted a pic similar to your first one.

I believe the solution was to plug/unplug the audio connector 10 or so times.

Edit: Here is the tread I originally had in mind.

And this thread is the one that mentioned plugging/unplugging the headphone jack.