swapping headphone and microphone function

October 31, 2005 5:05 PM

Is there a way to use my microphone input as a headphone output on a Dell laptop running Windows XP?

The headphone jack has a short and I have too much freelance work to do to send it back for a week to get it fixed right now. Thanks.

posted by pissfactory to computers & internet (3 comments total)

I don't know of anyway to switch the functions. However, if you have an available USB port, you can get USB headphones to use.

Here is a link to a quick search I did on Tigerdirect.com
posted by TheAnswer at 5:40 PM on October 31, 2005

Unfortunately, no... there's no way short of busting open your computer and swapping some wires... Your sound hardware is wired to have one port be "input", and one be "output", and it is incredibly doubtful that the hardware is flexible enough to allow reprogramming which one is used for input/output.

Your best option will be some kind of external USB sound device, or to bite the bullet and have the repairs done, unfortunately.
posted by twiggy at 5:45 PM on October 31, 2005

Some motherboards and sound cards actually have the flexibility to reconfigure inputs as outputs (generally for onboard sound that can act as line out/line in/microphone or surround sound outputs). I doubt the laptop has that functionality, though.
posted by zsazsa at 6:08 PM on October 31, 2005