heres your laugh for.. the next minute or two..
ok so for reasons i wont go into... i tried to make a single cord out of two old sets of headphones.. ya know the ones that have some kind of wire thats not really wire- its like string or something that doesnt really make any sense idk...i was shooting for the type of cord that has a 3.5mm jack on both ends.. well i made it, and plugged it into my headphone jack and my microphone jack on my laptop at the same time. mostly just to see what would happen while i played music and was trying to record with the 'voice recorder'.. lol yea i know. i cant really take myself seriously i know how dumb it sounds now that its broke. but it seemed like a good idea at the time. haha. but in any case, i think my ghetto cord shorted and fryed something inside my poor old 300 dollar dell... it still makes a little sound, but its so quiet you cant hardly hear it, and the volume is all the way up, and if you listen real hard, you can hear stuff, but its mostly crackly. everything else works just fine, i just cant listen to fun stuff anymore. and i tryed to restart it, and of course the troubleshooter didnt help...

so i guess what im getting at is, did i subject my faithful computer to irrepairable damage? or will i be able to hear stuff out of it again? thanks guys.

ttt?

Probably irreperable damage, but you can still get a PCI sound card (expansion card). I have several floating around that I can send to you free of charge (you pay shipping & handling).

First, can you do something for me? Take a picture of the back of your comptuer where the speakers are hooked up to the computer, would you? I want to see all of the plugs on the rear of your computer.

PS - I don't think I need to remind you how stupid what you did is. You know there is free software out on the internet to do what you were hacking cables to do, right?

he probably blown the amp on the soundcart doing that and its only running the preamp now
indeed the other soundcart is the best bet , lets hope dell isnt too picky bout chainging the onboard soundcart with a pci version

ohhhh yea i know it was dumb.. and i can get you pictures, but its a lap top- i dont know if i mentioned that or not.. and i tried to look for stuff on download.com, but nothing looked like what i want. if its fried, o well i guess- cause i bought it for cheap off a guy that used it for a good couple years anyway so it definitely doesnt owe me anything, but no reason to get new stuff if old stuff works just fine..(if only we could make that principle apply to our trucks!)

so if yo want a pic still since its a laptop i can get one to ya..

and to make matters even worse, i just found my cable that came with two ends on it. but just out of curiousity, if you have a real cable thats not hacked, will it work to do what i was trying to do? pretty sure it fried it cause of the hacked cable that was pry shorting... ok im done. thanks guys.

well heres some pics whether you need them still or not.. this will reduce the "internet tag" usually the only stuff plugged into it is the power cord and USB internet and USB camera... i left them huge so you could hopefully see the numbers on the bottom if that helps at all.. man i used to know alittle about computers but that sure has gone down the drain!!!
-Mike

Nope, no pic necessary. Guess you can either send it back to DELL to have the motherboard replaced OR buy a spare motherboard off eBay and replace it (tough to do :D)

Normally when you boot up a DELL, you can press "F12" button when you boot up the computer and go into a diagnostics mode that will let you test all of the components of your system to make sure they're fried.

I dunno. Dunno what else to tell you :) Don't bother with the pics :) They won't help. Knowing it is a laptop tells me everything I need to know.

ok i figured since it was a notebook i was pry screwed.. but it was worth a shot. ill give that componen test a shot to make sure, and i spose ill try to see if dell will fix it. will they do anything to it if i bought the thing used from my buddy? im guessin theyd pry make me pay a bunch of money, which probably wouldnt be worth it since its an old beater..

you might be able to coax some sound out of it again using some soundcart that works of the usb or pmci port with desktop speakers , it whont be portable no more but it will be loud again .

What he said ^^

Something like this on the cheap end: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829126101

Or this on the more expensive end:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102174

Thanks to you watahyahknow, I totally forgot about USB sound cards - never see people using them much.

Hey ghetto_superman, if you only have 1-2 USB ports on your computer, you can get a USB hub that will convert your single port into multiple ports.

hmm thats pretty sweet maybe ill get one of those someday when the truck doesnt need money anymore.. and the hubs are a pretty good idea... ive been thinking about getting a hub for the computer that still has sound (the desktop) but eh.. its got a sweet usb extension that you can plug stuff into and swap out.. ya get used to it. thats why my name is ghetto i suppose!! well guys i really appreciate your help, its yet another example of how great this forum really is!!!
-Mike