Mobile Phone Earphones worked on Pavilion 15, don't anymore

[Droidge]

I use a pair of earphones I got with my mobile phone for its microphone on my laptop. However, when I plugged them in today, the laptop kept ignoring the audio input, and all that got recorded was a bunch of static. I tried recording with another set, and got the same results. Both pairs worked with my phone, and recorded audio. I reinstalled the audio drivers (Realtek HD Audio), but that didn't solve the problem. Is this a hardware problem? If not, how do I fix it?