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I have HP Pavilion laptop with two jack outs for audio and both of them work if only one is plugged in. If both of jacks are used, then in only one headphones set there is a sound. I would like to have sound on both of them, so for example two people can listen the same thing on their own headphones.

I'm working on Ubuntu 10.04 and my sound card is:

Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

2 Answers 2

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I'm pretty sure that the headphone jack making the speaker jack turn off is a feature of the hardware and cannot be changed.

The best solution would be to get a 3.5mm Y Adapter or "Headphone splitter" like this one. They are pretty cheap.

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    So why I have two headphone jacks? If I can use only one of them, why two? There should be sound in both of them and turning on/off is a matter of software (at least in most cases).
    – klew
    Aug 6, 2010 at 19:10
  • @klew: If you look at how they are labeled, I'm guessing one is a speaker jack and one is a headphone jack. The speaker jack is muted when you plug in the headphones. This is just how a lot of laptops are configured. The intention is that you might leave the speaker one plugged in all the time, but occasionally plug in headphones so only you can hear something, and that should mute the speakers. The hardware may just be switching which port the signal is moving to and may not be even capable of outputting both at once. I'm not 100% sure, because I'm not familiar with your specific model.
    – Jarvin
    Aug 6, 2010 at 20:06
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    One is the "headphone" jack and the other is "line out." Headphone jacks are typically amplified and line outs are not. When running audio to another audio device, typically you use the line out as running audio through multiple amplifiers can cause distortion of sound, or even damage to audio equipment.
    – Keltari
    Sep 17, 2011 at 2:00
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Try passing an explicit value for the model parameter of the module for your audio hardware. See Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio-Models.txt for the available model values.

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  • It sounds like his computer is behaving correctly... most laptops have a speaker jack and a headphone jack, and when the headphone jack is in use the speaker jack is muted by design, so if I understand this correctly, I don't think it is an issue of his computer using the wrong model.
    – Jarvin
    Aug 6, 2010 at 18:52
  • @Dan: Except that older versions of ALSA would require the model to be specified in order for it to properly switch between headphone jack and built-in speakers on many laptops, so forcing it off the correct model may split the two up again. Aug 8, 2010 at 17:19

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