Macbook audio suddenly grayed out

[Phil4All]

Hey guys. I picked up an early 2008 macbook unibody for fairly cheap from a guy on CL a couple days ago, and today I noticed the audio wasn't working. I tested it the first day I had it, and it worked fine. I had read that this can sometimes be a problem with the headphone port, so I checked the port and I have no idea what I'm looking at. The port looks like it was pulled outward somehow and I can't even put a 3.5 mm cord in there. It's completely blocked. So, I guess this is a 2 part question. First question: anybody know what the heck happened here? I can't even tell, and I didn't wanna tear the thing down trying to find out. Second question would be, has anyone encountered the speaker mute issue and found out a workaround? I obviously can't plug in headphones and take them out (which some people say solves the problem.) but they 2ere working fine the other day so I don't know what happened. If it means anything, I can hear the boot chime when I turn it on, I just can't get the volume injured, it seems.

I've also posted a picture of the headphone port so you can see.

https://flic.kr/p/JvRUzw

 

[TheStu]

OK, it looks like there is a broken off bit of an old headphone jack stuck in there.

As to how to extract that?? No idea.

 

[Oyeve]

OK, it looks like there is a broken off bit of an old headphone jack stuck in there.

As to how to extract that?? No idea.

This happened to me on another device. What I did was use a cheap headphone jack, put a tiny, I mean TINY, amount of superglue on the tip, push jack in, wait a couple of hours, and pull it out. If done right the glue will adhere to the broken bit and come out with the jack.

 

[Childs]

You should be able to set the sound output to the internal speakers.

System Preferences > Sound > Output > Internal Speakers

And as Oyeve suggested, something like putting a paperclip end in some super glue then sticking on the broken headphone jack connector should get it out.