My brother just bought a pair of usb headphones/ mic to play a game. He really only wants to use the mic portion of the unit and leave the speakers.
Does anyone know of any setting that would could account for the usb headphones "muteing" the speakers?
If he has drivers installed for the sound card, check in the settings.
For example I have Realtek HD Audio Manager where the setting is in Audio IO tab. There's a button for connector settings where there's a setting "Mute rear panel output when front headphone is plugged in."
He could also try to connect the headphones to a read output. In that case speakers shouldn't be muted when using headphones.
If he however connects them to an output on speakers, this won't work since speakers will probably automatically switch off when headphones are attached.
You did not mention what OS, If this is Vista / 7, you can right click on the audio icon and then go to playback devices, select any of them and choose "Set Default"
