Problem with splitting the Audio Combo Jack

[r4dic4l]

Hi guys! I'm new here, so there, I said hello. ^^

I put this thread down because I've been googling and yahoo-ing and everything-ing everywhere but I can't seem to find a solution... So I really hope someone here can help me! Therefore, thanks in advance everyone.

The problem:

As many of you may know, some laptops (in my case, ASUS X42J series, 14") now come with what they call "combo jack" where you only have 1 3.5mm jack that you can either plug in a speaker/earphone etc to listen to or a mic to talk into. When you plug either the green or pink pin into that combo jack, you get an option from Realtek HD Audio Manager to choose whether you plugged in "Speakers" or "Microphone". This naturally posed a huge problem for those (read: me heheh ^^") who bought headphones with mic, which come with 2 jacks, 1 for audio out 1 for mic in.

As for me, I searched around, and found something called jack splitter, where u are supposed to insert the 1 3.5mm pin into that 1 combo jack and then you can insert your green and pink pins into that splitter. I looked around and found 1 by steelseries. (not sure if this is a correct one)


However, when I plugged my headphone and mic into that splitter and plugged it into the combo jack of my laptop, the option for you to choose "Speakers" or "Mic" come up and if i chose Speakers, i STILL can't use the mic! Even worse, if i choose "Mic", I cannot use BOTH the headphones and the mic.

So, can anyone help me? Is it software problem? or is it hardware? I hope someone out there who has had this kind of problem before and miraculously found a way out can help me, as i really need my mic with my headphones together real bad );

Laptop Spec: (do u need it?)
Asus X42J
Intel Core i7-740QM
ATI HD5470
4GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB HDD

THANKS GUYS!

[ALLurGroceries]

That's a TRRS adapter, looks like the right one at a quick glance.

Have you tried a regular wired headset to see if it'll work?

[David]

I believe your audio port can only support one setting at a time. So either out (speaker) or in (mic). It's a combo port, but I don't think it can work with speaker and mic simultaneously.This could be either a hardware or software (driver) issue, but either way, your best bet is to confirm with Asus regarding the simultaneous use of speaker/mic.

[r4dic4l]

That's a TRRS adapter, looks like the right one at a quick glance.

Have you tried a regular wired headset to see if it'll work?

ah, i just tried.. turns out it doesn't );

I believe your audio port can only support one setting at a time. So either out (speaker) or in (mic). It's a combo port, but I don't think it can work with speaker and mic simultaneously.This could be either a hardware or software (driver) issue, but either way, your best bet is to confirm with Asus regarding the simultaneous use of speaker/mic.

Thank you both for your advice! I just sent a technical inquiry form to ASUS. Let's hope they find a solution soon, and then I'll be sure to share it here for other people who faces problem like this too.

[r4dic4l]

Hey everyone! I received a reply from ASUS. As expected, they didn't even try to help. They just told me that I should get a USB headphone. Blah... So it seems for now this issue cannot be resolved.. );

[David]

Hey everyone! I received a reply from ASUS. As expected, they didn't even try to help. They just told me that I should get a USB headphone. Blah... So it seems for now this issue cannot be resolved.. );

I'm sorry to hear that. But if it is a hardware limitation then your only other option would be to use a USB headphone.

[r4dic4l]

I changed my adapter for a usb sound card and a 7 port high speed USB adapter which requires power supply. this is the only way i can use my gaming headphone and still have enough USB ports for other stuff.

As for the usb sound card, i got it cheap off vztec, and it's actually too loud. I put both the settings in my main volume AND the sound card to the lowest it's still very loud. I still have to lower the volume in my media player/application/headphones volume control in order to not be deaf. Just a heads up for everyone.

a lesson learnt! next time i'll double check the audio jacks before i purchase any notebook. thanks for everyone's (two people lol) help!

[Furiousa]

Really sorry to bump this but I figured it's better than posting a new topic. I'm facing the same problem as the OP.

Basically the Realtek HD Audio Manager only allows one checkbox to be selected, so I'm guessing what David said is right. Despite being a combo jack, it's not able to work both ways simultaneously.

I think it's a pretty bonehead design. I mean granted it's a 14" laptop but I'm sure they could've fitted another jack to make them seperated. What's worse is that even when I try to use the internal mic, the quality is so bad that my voice can't even be heard properly.

I've reinstalled the latest Realtek HD drivers and I get an ungodly amount of static whenever I try to use Audacity or Skype. Not sure what the problem could be.

I'm really trying to dodge buying a USB headset/sound card because I'm tight on cash so if anyone could shed any light on the situation it would be cool.

[Dragauss]

The situation looks pretty clear to me. It can only select one function at a time. The only other thing that I haven't seen done is not using Realtek drivers. MS or some other compatible drivers might be able to use the jack splitter mentioned by the OP.

Personally would go the usb way like the OP. They range from really cheap to very nice and expensive. Realtek is fine by my standards, but you can get better audio from usb most of the time. Here's and example of a el-cheapo adapter.

[DCx]

It's not a driver restriction, it's a chipset limitation. A hardware "no-can-do". The chipset isn't full duplex on a single jack, so you won't be able to get it to work like this. You're complaining that the software doesn't support your configuration, when in fact the hardware doesn't support it ... which means the software won't either.

I'm really trying to dodge buying a USB headset/sound card because I'm tight on cash so if anyone could shed any light on the situation it would be cool.

Well, a USB soundcard is $2.80 with free shipping from deal extreme. I think you can probably skip a cup of coffee and splurge, no matter how tight your budget is. Also, my link and the amazon link are the same, but you're saving more than 50% with my link.

FIFTY PERCENT.