Don Y posted for all of us...



On 1/22/2016 3:23 AM, Kenny wrote:
Acer laptop with combo headphone/mic socket. The tip of a 3.5m stereo jack has
detached inside the socket and it's cutting off the speakers.

Grrrr.. you appear to alternate between calling it a JACK (female) and a PLUG
(male).

I assume you mean "the tip of a 3.5mm stereo (TRS) PLUG has detached
inside the JACK"?

Presumably, the *TIP* has come off the plug just past the RING conductor;
i.e., the TIP (and only the tip!) remains in the jack while the RING and
SLEEVE of the plug are still intack.

If I put the
headphone jack with the missing tip back in the headphones work.

I suspect you mean that the RIGHT channel of the headphones works
(the right channel is fed from the RING conductor with the SLEEVE
acting as ground/common). I'm not sure the TIP conductor (which
is stuck in the jack) would still make contact with the (now broken)
plug satisfactorily to provide a connection for the LEFT channel
(though it might, depending on what's left protruding from the
truncated plug)

It was either
a poor quality plug or the socket gripped the plug so tightly it pulled the tip
off. Problem now is getting the tip out of the socket without damaging it.
This is not an easy laptop to dismantle, I recently fitted an SSD and it was
awkward work. Been wondering if I put a dab of superglue on the end of the
plug, push it in the socket, leave it for a while to set then pull it out will
it bring the detached part out with it? An obvious pitfall is that the whole
plug would then become lodged in the socket!

Exactly. The risk increases as you apply more adhesive.

One can argue that sufficient "care" may make this a worthwhile approach.
The alternative is disassembly. And, if this approach fails, disassembly
will be *required*.

However, also note that if the plug adheres too strongly to the jack,
you may have trouble getting at the jack itself! I.e., the body of
the plug is likely larger than the hole in the enclosure through which
the jack protrudes. So, you won't be able to just pull the main-board
out (from the inside) as the plug body will hold it to the case.

OTOH, if you haven't been OVER zealous in applying adhesive, you
can probably "break" the plug at the previous fault line.

A more problematic condition might be adhesive flowing *through*
the jack *body* and adhering the jack to the main-board. There,
you'd have two relatively large, FLAT, adjoining surfaces that could
prove difficult to separate (when you eventually try to remove the
jack from the main-board) without lifting foils.

[Keep in mind that superglue tends to be of low viscosity.]

Any ideas anyone?

Does the laptop have BT? If so, consider delivering audio via
a BT headset??

Jack on jack off...

--
Tekkie