[Q] Audio jack not working - Motorola Droid 4

My 3.5 mm audio output has been having increasing problems and it won't recognize most jacks anymore, including my earphones. Do you know of any trick to make it work, or would I need to replace the part completely to have it working again?

I think it depends on the kind of issue you see.
Example:
My audio jack was not working when I received my used Droid 4 from the USA.
I realized that my headphones are not deep enough in the phone. When I push them in a bit more they worked properly, but hey flip out as soon I touch the cable or I move.
1. Look if the Headphone jack is dirty and clean it up: h**ps://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod_answer_detail/a_id/85247/p/30,6720,8096/c/8149,8172
2. If its cleaned and still not working its probably a hardware issue. ( Now you need to find whats broken / not working )
- A weak point is that the feeds of headphone jack are only pushed against the mainboard. I can imagine that carrying the phone in the pocket will bend that feeds. Meaning if you try to use the headphone jack outside of the pocket it will not work properly. You can try to push from the outside of the headphone jack to see if they work then properly. If yes... you need to disassembly the phone... and bend the feeds of the headphone jack back so that they get contact with the mb again.
- In my case after cleaning the headphone jack, the plug still didn't fit into the jack properly. I didn't want to open the Phone since ifixit says its a mess. So I tried to fix it without replacing it. I pushed a pice of toothpick into it to widen the deepest part of the jack. That fixed my Headphone jack. But the risk is there that you completely mess up the jack and you have to replace it completely.
Try at your own risk!

It is VERY easy for lint, dust, and grime to get stuck in the audio input socket. It's happened to my phone several times, since the audio jack isn't covered by any sort of cap. If you turn the phone off, shine a light into the socket, and (gently) dig around with a safety pin, you should be able to get most of the gunk out. It'd surprise you, how much lint can get stuck in there!
If you can find something to cover the audio input socket with, even better.

It was just dirty after all - I had like 3 mm worth of lint inside
I was worried it's some HW issue because different jacks responded differently... Glad it's not I use BT HF most of the time (with 3,5 jack output for headphones), but sometimes I like to plug the phone into my speakers, plus BT isn't that comfy for watching video...
Pipe cleaner wasn't very helpful, but a pin did the trick
Thanks for your help, guys!

Related

X1 3.5mm socket broke my headphone jack :(

Hi,
Wanted to ask if this was a common problem. The 3.5mm socket on my Xperia has worn two pretty significant grooves into my headphone jack. It's now so bad that the right channel doesn't work half the time. The problem persists when I use the headphones in other devices to it's definitely managed to damage the heaphone jack.
I experimented with the included microphone lead and it has also managed to scar that a little so I immediately stopped using it.
Has anyone else encountered this problem? FYI the headphones are AKG K414P.
Thanks
Tome
The socket sucks. It ALMOST broke my in-ear headphone's jack. It's too tight.
yeah the socket is really tight on mine as well, haven't streaked any headphones yet though, maybe I haven't used them enough?
I have something like this. I think I have the same problem.
It is indeed too tight.
Managed to pull away the rubber coating on my headphones jack, while trying to unplug :/
dogans said:
It is indeed too tight.
Managed to pull away the rubber coating on my headphones jack, while trying to unplug :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what happened to me. Be sure to grab that rubber very tightly.
ksian said:
I have something like this. I think I have the same problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem here, i think this is a common problem on all XPERIA. The socket is too damn tight.
Anyway once you know that you start taking care and you won't break anything. And it's clearly an advantage that it's so tight, if you're using big headphones and your X1 slips out of your hand, it won't touch the ground (Assuming the cable is not too long and you ain't too small ). I like this.
I think we're talking about two different problems here.
My original question was about the contacts on the inside of the socket being so strong that they have cut grooves into the headphone plug. The grooves are so deep that they will not make connection half of the time i use it so that I am losing the right channel of audio on my headphones.
The other problem you guys are talking about is that the heaphone jack holds onto the plug too tightly and so the plug is damaged when you try to remove it.
While you might be able to prevent the second problem by removing the plug carefully, there is no way to avoid the original problem that I reported.
It sounds like Ksian might have the same problem as me but i can't tell from the short reply. Has anyone else experience loss of audio through one channel of their headphones due to the socket cutting grooves in their headphone jack? I know for sure that the X1 socket is too hard as it always makes marks on plugs that are inserted into them, but i want to know if my headphone plug might also be too soft combining two problems to make me lose sound in the right-hand channel
tome_1 said:
I think we're talking about two different problems here.
My original question was about the contacts on the inside of the socket being so strong that they have cut grooves into the headphone plug. The grooves are so deep that they will not make connection half of the time i use it so that I am losing the right channel of audio on my headphones.
The other problem you guys are talking about is that the heaphone jack holds onto the plug too tightly and so the plug is damaged when you try to remove it.
While you might be able to prevent the second problem by removing the plug carefully, there is no way to avoid the original problem that I reported.
It sounds like Ksian might have the same problem as me but i can't tell from the short reply. Has anyone else experience loss of audio through one channel of their headphones due to the socket cutting grooves in their headphone jack? I know for sure that the X1 socket is too hard as it always makes marks on plugs that are inserted into them, but i want to know if my headphone plug might also be too soft combining two problems to make me lose sound in the right-hand channel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I DO have BOTH problems. My plug has quite deep scratches. But no loss of audio so far. I think this will get better with time, the socket will also lose some material If your headphones are expensive and break quickly (and you absolutely want to keep your X1 as Mp3player) you might want to use a very small extension cord to avoid damage to the headphones themselves. Extensions of say 2" exist.
dogans said:
It is indeed too tight.
Managed to pull away the rubber coating on my headphones jack, while trying to unplug :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same thing it did to mine, killing my Creative Aurvanas's 3.5mm jack rubber housing. They still work but the rubber is loose.
Ah well, because of that I am actually looking at some Shure E530's (the Xperia is a pretty good source IMO). They have a detachable extension cord so i can use a L-plug instead of a straight plug.
Really, use L-plugs, they are a lot more durable against the tight socket. Its just because the sound is really great for a phone, hell, I bet its better than most MP3 players, else i would be very mad, killing my favourite IEM's . Very clean sound, although sensitive IEM's will hiss but that is expectable from such a 'noisy' thing like a fully packed-with-features phone.
But hey, a tight socket is better then a loose socket, or a proprietary extension cord like the HTC's.
Apart from killing my Aurvana's I still think the 3.5mm socket is High Quality Stuff. It just feels 'right' when you plug in your IEM's/headphones.
Keep in mind that you shouldn't keep the extension plugged in all the time because the phone actually detects this and routes certain sound events from the speaker to the headphones. For instance if you pick up a call with the extension plugged in but no headphones, you will not be able to hear the caller.
yeah i was thinking that i might have to make/buy a short extension to save my expensive headphones
it's like you guys are saying, the sound is good enough that i want to put good headphones on so i'll have to find a way to protect them. I wonder if the included handsfree extension is resistant to the phone's socket?
I use the stock extension. It gets scratched as well (have xperia for 2 months). As for the sound quality, I'm thinking about repairing my good old Ipod nano for listening mp3's. I do think, that it has better sound quality and more than that the battery of the phone won't die out so fast (playing music for about 2 hours a day).
Lol. Would not have noticed this without you guys. Who would look at their earphone jacks? Either they are very bored or something about their earphones is screwed up.
Does other HTC phones have these problems? Oh wait, only the THD has 3.5mm.
The jack has ground grooves into the jack on every single pair of earphones I own,and based on this alone, I'd say SE, give me my freakin money back!
Is it serious? Probably not. But is it supposed to do that? Hell no.
I don't want to use the stock extension cable, otherwise I wouldn't choose a phone with a 3.5mm jack, Jesus bleeping Christ.
I have the same problem here. I used a nokia handsfree and after 2 days I had that scratches and sometimes I couldn't here well, the sound was faded and i had to turn the jack in a certain position. Today I tried an Iphone handsfree and it doesn't work well..
I don't know why... Is it to thin? It's new but the sound is faded. I don;t get it? Has anybody tried this apple headphones? (The one with microphone, so 3 stripes on the jack)
LATER POST: I TRIED ANOTHER HEADPHONES AND THE SAME BLURED SOUND...SO I GUESS MY SOCKET IT'S SCREWED
well, then again the apple handsfree is thiner i guess, because i tried some Lg headphones and they were ok. the apple headphones are functioning conected on laptop. I don't know what to believe... I really wanted to use the apple stuff on this phone, i should buy an extender.
use your xperia handfree as an extension, have been doing that for over a year now, and even though it's scratched like hell, it works fine, without damaging my beats
Could you please tell me wich model of headphones by SE are they? I mean the x1 headphones.
I found out that iphone's 3.5mm socket is not like the others so the x1 is not like the others and maybe that;s the reason i can;t use the apple headphones.
ok...got it.."If they have a mic, then they're useless for anything but an iPhone.
Apple decided rather than follow the industry standard of Right/Left/Mic/Ground, they would make their own up. They chose to make their socket Right/Left/Ground/Mic, which means your N900 is trying to ground the headphones through the mic, which clearly will not work.
In short, they won't work on anything except an iProduct."

(HELP) xperia stuck in headset mode

its been a few months now and still no parts for my xperia so i cant get it fixed.
i have been wondering if its possible for someone to make a cab to turn off/on hardware headset jack or forcibly use handset speaker when in a call orsomething?
BTW i have tried all possible fixes using the "search feature"
Are you describing the problem where even though there is nothing plugged into the 3.5mm jack, the XPERIA thinks you've got something plugged in? If so, I'm having the same issue and have found that a quick way to fix this is to take the stylus and wiggle it about at the bottom of 3.5mm jack. This clears it up.
well yeah that worked before but my jack is kinda broken but working
some of the metal in the jack is really loose and the jack has a small broken part.
I had the same issue where my headphone jack reported that there was a constant headphone plugged in, it happened after I plugged a damaged headphone port into the phone.
It took many hours of research and a very intricate and careful dissasembly to fix the issue. I meant to take photos, but my primary camera ( my X1 ) was in pieces at the time..
Anyway, there's a little connector inside the headphone jack that makes contact with a pad, closing a circut, if the connector is bent too far out of the way, it doesn't make contact, and the phone thinks there is a headset inserted.
If your connector is actually broken, you'll have to jerry-rig a wire or something between the two plates to force it to know there's nothing in, but then you lose all headphone functions.
I had to bend the strip of copper to -exactly- how it should be, and it worked out for me, my phone is back how it used to be.
I hope this is of some help to someone, if it happens to me again, I'll document it properly, unfortunately I was in a rush this time, so I didn't have time to prepare properly, I went gung-ho and ripped it to pieces to get it right again.
what about a "software" method of fixing this problem?
doesn't windows mobile support turning headset off, from the registry, for example?
while using radio you can still redirect the sound to the main speaker, (this option is available on the radio panel) something like this feature can help us, i think..
Same problem here. I have tried some suggestion over here but didn't work. You may try it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4485113#post4485113
I'm tired with annoying wire headset and now using a BT headset to be able make/receive calls.
Hope somebody can help us before we send back for repairing.
It happened to me, simply insert a clean "cotton buds" and pull it out again. I think, a dirt just got stuck causing some hardware short circuit or something. Don't know....but it definitely worked for me. I have tried those hardresets, softresets, tweaks and unfortunately none of them worked.
try to drain the battery and charge it back up.
Sometimes would be nice to combine some of the threads because they refer to the same problem
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=529449
Anyway from my knowledge there are two reasons for this problem.
You may guess
1. Hardware:
This issue had been described very often. Of course the jack is a delicate piece of hardware, which could be damaged physically due to some bad plug or violent force.
2. Software:
It's obvious that the connection is controlled by a piece of software.
I realized that the problem had gone with the latest update.
Maybe it would be helpful to know about the firmware version you got on your phone.
P.S.: Anyone out there who may add this issue to the wiki?
scholbert

Headphones extension cord

I've been thinking about this for some time as I have some nice headphones (HeadDirect RE0) that I use with my Defy. But I miss having a microphone (taking/making calls without too much hassle). So I thought of cutting off the headphones of a Nokia stereo headset and putting a 3.5 plug so that I can have an extension cord with microphone.
I searched around the net but didn't find a good pinout so I opened the Nokias. They only have a 470ohm resistor (if I remember well). I tried to rewire those (to get a button push) with no success.
So I opened the original Motorola headset (quite easy and with no damage) to find quite a circuit inside. I'm putting the a picture of the circuit here, maybe someone with more experience can help me. The circuit is quite small and as I have minimum experience with circuits...
PS: I was thinking of getting a third party headset, but at about 10 euros... kinda expensive to break.
Heh, this is how i modded my headphones - got Creative EP-630 headphones, but no microphone, and sucking (compared to senn) motorola ones.... ...and voila!
Take pilot/microphone apart --> solder out old connections --> cut new headphones cord somewhere like 20 cm from headphone -->solder them in to original connection points.
EDIT:
Ohhh... and the worst part was to carefully remove original rubber gasket around original cables which were to be removed, and pulling/glueing new cabling through it. But the effect is awesome - there is almost no visual hint that someone modded them
..and sound quality....
I was thinking that I could get away with it without taking apart the original headset, but it looks like I'm slowly getting there...
Thanks for your reply!
I have a sony headset with mic, but they have the old sony ericsson socket. Could it be possible to solder a 3.5 jack onto them. Are the even selling 3.5 jacks with 4 rings?
I don't know if you could find a 4-rings 3.5 jack? Check the closest electronic parts shop. Or, if you have a Nokia headset lying around like I had...
From what I've found out the mic and headphones work OK just connected to the respective rings*, but what I couldn't make work is the button. As you can see in the attached picture, there are a few SMD capacitors.
*if I remember well, from tip: Left, Right, Mic, Ground (Corrected: Left, Right, Ground, Mic!!!)
Cheers!
NO.
There is right:
Left, Right, Ground, Mic
This is my modification:

[Q] Headphone jack cutting out

Ok im listening to music when all of a sudden the music cuts out, so w/e i unplug and plug in the headphones and it works again. But lately the earphone jack cuts out with any little movement to the earphone at all, i cant listen to music with the phone in my pocket because it cuts out when i take a step.
If anyone has any easy fix for this weird problem, please tell me.
*note: just to be sure it wasnt software based, i went to stock rom and just to make sure it wasnt the earphones i tried it with 5 pairs
any advice?
i've got the same problem, tried using headset blocker, but that didn't help
edit: If someone know how to delete this function out of android, i would be very pleased, because i dont use it!
i fixed it with a little piece of plastic i put between the headphonejack and the case like this:
http://img39.imageshack.us/i/rimg1303u.jpg/
How did you get the plastic in there? i tried biting off a piece of plastic straw but it wont go in all the way
Mine used to do that, but changing to new set of headphones (where the male connector wasn't so worn) fixed the issue for now.
I think the headphone jack is just a little sloppy on tolerances (and a little bit weak too). You might need to send it in for repair.
Markolic said:
How did you get the plastic in there? i tried biting off a piece of plastic straw but it wont go in all the way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i used a part of a plastic straw. http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/116/trinkhalm.jpg
but it was 15 minutes work but it was worth that cause the jack is working like before.

Headphone Jack seems to loose connection

hi, i noticed that my headphone jack starts to not always recognize the headphone after i pluged them im. Sometimes i need to spinn them around the jack. Also When i have my smartphone in my pocket with earphone plugged in and i walk around it sometimes looses the connection. Does anyone have noticed it also? Or did i loose some contact from headphone jack to "mainboard"... ?
Someone found out that there are lints in the jack which can't be blowing out by air. So he took a paperclip bended it up and pulled the lints out with one end of the bended up paperclip. After this he blows again in the jack just to get sure all lints are out and booted his phone. All his problems are gone.
But make sure your phone is off. If not you maybe can get an electrical short in your jack!
Maybe this helps you.
@ICuaI: Thanks a lot! now it works perfect! Cellphone hygieni... .
I cleared it out witrh a forceps and with rolled toilet paper dipped in ethanol. I think i still can see a bit of dust. but ill wait untill i get better tools
.
Thanks a lot !!!

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