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Can sound boards/amps cause a notebook minijack to go bad?

M

Mr N8

Diamond Member
I have a guy on staff here that has had his sound card go out for the 3rd time, now, in just over a year. He does presentations in conference rooms / auditoriums all over the place, and typically connects his laptop headphone port to the sound system located in the rooms that he's in. Every once in a while his sound doesn't work any more, and Dell ends up replacing the motherboard, since the audio is integrated.

Can certain sound systems, cables, or amps cause this sort of trouble? Would an external sound card help with this problem?

Anything you can recommend would be appreciated.

 
It really shouldn't make a difference, unless he's getting some kind of charge down the line when he plugs it in (which he shouldn't). An external card may help, at least it would stop the mobo from frying? What ikind of laptop is it? How old is it?
 
Maybe it is all that plugging and unplugging. Have you tried calling Dell about this? Maybe they have a better solution like an upgrade to a different model. Or maybe some mini-speakers. I wonder if they make a feedback filter to block spikes or something like that.
 
Hmmm...the guy is probably traveling to 2-4 sites per week doing this. I'm not sure it has to do with the plugging in and unplugging, because it basically blows his entire sound card. There no output on the speakers or the headphone port.

 
They shouldn't, theoretically, cause any trouble; but who knows what kind of ghastly systems he has run into. If he's doing 2-4 per week his system has probably seen every botched job in the book. You might want to try kitting him out with a cheap USB-analog audio adapter widget. Those are no more likely to survive; but at least they are so cheap as to be practically disposable.
 
The headphone out jack is not really a line-out jack - and that is what he would want to connect to an external amp/sound system. Line-out is a pre-amplified signal. The headphone out is amplified. And, in certain cases, you can blow that circuit by trying to amplify it further.

If I were in his shoes, I would get a Creative Audigy 2NX, a self-powered, USB sound module that gives you precisely all the ports, in and out, you would ever need for a presentation.

2NX
 
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