Game Theater External Rack Problem

[iDunno]

My headphones and microphone plug are screwy. They dont work sometimes and work sometimes. To make them work i need to jiggle the plugs a little until they work. On my headphones if they dont work, i only hear sound on teh right channel. On my mic, it doesnt work at all, and i always need to jiggle it, and if i accidently bump into the card or pull on the cable, i have to jiggle it agian to make it work.

Anyone have any ideas on what is going on? I think its a hardware problem, i heard that you can soldier something, but i dunno what to soldier.

[Dexter]

You are going to have to pull the sound card out and examine the plug headers. If the plug headers are loose, check the solder points, see if the solder has broken anywhere. This can happen if the solder job was weak, and if you do a lot of plugging and unplugging - the force on the header can break the solder point. If you can find any such loose connection, then you simply need to solder it up. If you have never soldered on a circuit board before, I recommend you either get someone who knows what they are doing to help you, or take it to any electronics repair place and say "solder there."

If the headers appear to be solidly attached, then your problem is inside the header, and at that point you might as well throw it out and buy a new sound card (unless it is under warranty.)

Dexter...