Hmm.. Tell me I'm not nuts. Hopefully somebody will understand this.. 
I got a brand new Gateway Computer last Friday. I have external speakers w/ a subwoofer, and they are wonderful, but my computer is set up in my living room so when people are in the room I really can't blast my music.
This all seems simple enough. I should just be able to plug in my headphones. The problem is that there is no headphone jack anywhere but on the back of the system. There isn't one on the front of the tower (on the dvd/cd drive, or the cd-rw drive), on the monitor, on the speakers themselves, or even on the keyboard! There is only one place that the headphones work, and that is on the green output hole/port (whatever you want to call it) on the sound card (Sound BlasterTM Live with Digital Audio Output) That is the same hole that my speakers plug into. There is another black port/hole on the sound card that supposively should work for headphones, but I tried and it doesn't. I can plug my headphones in the green hole, but I have to go into the speaker settings (in the sound control pannel), switch the setup from 2 speakers to "stereo headphones", and switch off "digital output only". This is a lot of crap to do just to plug some headphones in.
I know I've seen systems with external speakers that have a headphone jack on the front of the tower, or on the keyboard or something, and when you plug the headphones into that jack, the sound goes through the headphones, and *only* through the headphones. And when you take the headphones out, the sound goes back through the speakers. When I call Gateway's techsupport, they act like I'm a total idiot, and they have no idea what I'm talking about. Everyone you talk to has a completely different answer. They're offering no solutions at all. It's really starting to piss me off. I thought I'd ask you guys since you're more knowledgeable about this than any of the tech idiots at gateway. I hope I'm not completely nuts.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
I got a brand new Gateway Computer last Friday. I have external speakers w/ a subwoofer, and they are wonderful, but my computer is set up in my living room so when people are in the room I really can't blast my music.
This all seems simple enough. I should just be able to plug in my headphones. The problem is that there is no headphone jack anywhere but on the back of the system. There isn't one on the front of the tower (on the dvd/cd drive, or the cd-rw drive), on the monitor, on the speakers themselves, or even on the keyboard! There is only one place that the headphones work, and that is on the green output hole/port (whatever you want to call it) on the sound card (Sound BlasterTM Live with Digital Audio Output) That is the same hole that my speakers plug into. There is another black port/hole on the sound card that supposively should work for headphones, but I tried and it doesn't. I can plug my headphones in the green hole, but I have to go into the speaker settings (in the sound control pannel), switch the setup from 2 speakers to "stereo headphones", and switch off "digital output only". This is a lot of crap to do just to plug some headphones in.
I know I've seen systems with external speakers that have a headphone jack on the front of the tower, or on the keyboard or something, and when you plug the headphones into that jack, the sound goes through the headphones, and *only* through the headphones. And when you take the headphones out, the sound goes back through the speakers. When I call Gateway's techsupport, they act like I'm a total idiot, and they have no idea what I'm talking about. Everyone you talk to has a completely different answer. They're offering no solutions at all. It's really starting to piss me off. I thought I'd ask you guys since you're more knowledgeable about this than any of the tech idiots at gateway. I hope I'm not completely nuts.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
