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Override headphone jack to use internal MBP speakers?

D

David G.

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 10, 2007
1,129
490
Alaska
Hello MacRumors!

I have a 15 inch MBP that is experiencing a problem with its headphone jack. Some portion of it inside the plug is jammed to make it falsely believe that I always have something plugged into it, disabling the computer's built-in speakers. Is there some way where I can force with software the MBP to output sound to the speakers on either side of the keyboard, rather than having sound wired towards the headphone/optical out jack? I am certain it is the headphone jack's fault because red light comes out from the jack as if I'm using it for optical out, and I was previously able to intermittently get it to use speakers by poking and prodding in the port with a toothpick to reset the spring mechanism thingamabob, as suggested elsewhere.

Miscellaneous related info:
I can divert sound to a bluetooth speaker just fine.
I can use the headphone jack to listen to audio just fine.
I can use the thunderbolt to DisplayPort/HDMI audio features just fine.
 
It’s a fairly common issue with older Macs that combine optical and analog audio out. There is a little switch in there that sometimes gets stuck. Take a toothpick and fumble around in there, you should be able to turn it off eventually :)
 
Try holding the alt/option key and clicking the volume icon in the menu bar. It'll show you the output sources, and you should be able to pick the "Internal Speakers."
 
leman said:
It’s a fairly common issue with older Macs that combine optical and analog audio out. There is a little switch in there that sometimes gets stuck. Take a toothpick and fumble around in there, you should be able to turn it off eventually :)
Click to expand...
I have done this before, and it used to work, but no longer does. I am considering selling the MBP and would like to inform the buyer of a software fix to the problem, instead of directing them to do some poking and prodding.

ebika said:
Try holding the alt/option key and clicking the volume icon in the menu bar. It'll show you the output sources, and you should be able to pick the "Internal Speakers."
Click to expand...
This does not work. The only available option under output devices is the optical out. Internal speakers doesn't show up, it isn't even a greyed out option.
 
iMacDragon said:
I'm fairly sure that this is a hardware level switch of audio output, only on 2018 models are they seperate outputs that can be selected unfortunately, if it's not behaving.
Click to expand...
Yeah, SoundSource didn't work. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that no software will ever force output to the speakers rather than optical out.
 
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