Posted on Monday, 7th April 2008 by Patrick DeVivo
I usually use an external speaker system to listen to music from my Apple MacBook, and when I unplugged the audio cable from my headphone jack, a spooky red light spilled out onto my desk. I looked in and saw a brightly lit LED bulb. I wasn’t able to adjust the volume, and when I went into System Preferences > Sound I couldn’t choose internal speakers as my audio output source. I did some research and found out that I probably slightly bent the sensor which detects whether or not there is a cable plugged into the headphone jack.
I guess this means that my computer “thought” I had a pair of headphones or speakers plugged into it when I actually didn’t. Apparently, the easiest way to fix this is to take a match stick or like object and jiggle the sensor until it detects that there is nothing plugged in.
:rolleyes:
I found a fix for the red light problem. I’m not sure if I like it, but it works. After reading forum thread after forum thread of users that had this problem, I found a dude who fixed his jack with a rubber ended bobby pin. It seems a sensor gets bent (?) and the system thinks your digital external line is still plugged in. I took the butt end of a matchstick and tickled inside the jack. My red light went out. My internal speakers work again. Whatever.brady.ca (http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-237405.html)
Tags: Apple, Headphones, MacBook, Music
Posted in Apple | Comments (2)
June 14th, 2008 at 6:14 am
That red light you saw was in fact an optical laser, as all Macs now include optical audio out over the Toslink connector (aka fibre optic cable) this red light is active when it is attempting to send a signal out via the optical link and thus it was the optical sensor. I’d be careful poking stuff in there, you may ruin the optics. But cheers for the tip!
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Wow thanks man… saves me a 45 minute trip to the apple store.