I have an old Librem15 that I use regularly. Tonight, I have an external powered speaker plugged into the headphone jack for a while. Foolishly, I moved the laptop and the speaker dropped to the floor, yanking the cable attached to the headphone jack.
Now, neither the headphone jack, nor the internal speakers work. And according to the PureOS interface, the jack is recognized as having a headphone plugged in, whether or not there is one. I’ve tried rebooting. I haven’t tried getting inside the laptop.
I’m worried that I may have broken something. Does anyone have any advice before I dive into the hardware and look for broken things?
I got inside the Librem15, and it looks like one card provides I/O for the headphone jack and the USB on that side.
I tried fiddling/jiggling it and put it back together but it’s still broken. I own a USB speaker that used to work, and now it doesn’t either (even on the other side of the laptop). I did notice a ribbon cable from the I/O board to the motherboard, I guess I can try removing that to see how the system would respond.
It’s the same as mine. And once I removed it, it was clear that the jack is loose. I damaged it (unfortunately).
After I removed it and disconnected from the motherboard, unfortunately, the OS still senses that headphones are plugged in and disables the internal speakers. I could do without those USB ports if I could close (or open) the circuit that re-enabled the internal speakers.
Anyway, I sent an email into support in hopes that there may be a replacement daughter board available to purchase (fingers crossed).
For what it’s worth, this has happened to me a number of times (not with a Librem laptop but that doesn’t make much difference). As a result, I have made sure that the length of analog audio cable going to the speakers is much more than the drop to the floor. So while the speaker may end up the worse for wear, it at least doesn’t pull on the point at which it is plugged in.
I haven’t verified this, but from a look over the schematic, jack pin 7 is used for sense, and it connects to pin 5 (plug tip) when no jack is inserted (“normally closed”). One of the photos shows silkscreened pin numbers on the jack footprint, so you may be able to identify the pins this way. Take care though, as schematic symbols aren’t always perfectly accurate and I haven’t tested this. It’s consistent with your observation that removing the I/O board causes the jack to seem plugged though.
To double check that you have the right pins, jack pin 7 should connect to the I/O ribbon connector pin 5, and jack pin 5 should connect to ribbon connector pin 3.
I have had this problem once too, but it was the result of my mishandling the laptop while a jack was inserted. Consequences were the same as you describe: no recognition that nothing is plugged inside the female jack and therefore no sound being routed to the internal speakers. Take apart showed that the female jack had broken at the daughterboard solder points and was loose. But it otherwise looked as if the connector was undamaged and just needed to be soldered back in place onto the board…
It is not an easy job - proceed with cautionl! First, solder has to be pumped out and then the jack properly inserted and soldered back on. The hard part is pumping the remaining solder out; too much heat, duration or attempts can easily damage traces or pass-through pcb holes.
If your connector looks damaged internally, you could probably find a new one same type - they are fairly common. Or maybe, excellent Purism Support could send you this small part to repair the board…
