This is a strange one. I have an IBM Thinkpad A31 notebook. I've had the notebook for about a year and decided to use the headphone jack for the first time. I plugged my headphones in, and heard no sound. I then unplugged my headphones . . . no sound out of my speakers. To make a long story short, I've completely reformatted my hard drive after trying EVERYTHING. . . still no sound. My drivers are up to date; Windows detects the sound card and reports it as a properly functioning device. My PC speaker works, of course. I'm an I.T. professional and have never seen something like this before. I don't think it can be possible that I short the soundboard, but nothing else considering it is totally integrated. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Maybe you fried the soundcard? Are you blasting that sucker super loud? Im not an expert on laptops but maybe this will help!

I wasn't blasting it at all. This laptop's sound quality isn't anything spectacular. The louder, the worse it sounds. Of course, it sounds even worse now that it doesn't work at all! I was playing it at normal volume when I inserted the headphones. IBM's website has nothing to offer. Thanks anyway, Ed.

ok, simplest solutions first, they may sound daft, but its worth a check do the headphones work elsewhere? if not, it could be a dodgy headphone jack. (if youve dropped it or something) also, does the microphone socket work?

Headphobe jacks normally have a contact (switch) that opens up the circuit to the speakers when you use the headphones. It sounds like maybe something broke in the jack and that contact did not remake when you removed the headphone plug.

The headphones definitely work elsewhere. It does not appear as though the mic port works either. I get no response from the sound recorder. I did not expect that. I guess it's also possible that there was damage to the jack to begin with, even before I tried to use the phones. Would explain why the headphones also never worked. That's not cool. Any suggestions, or am I SOL? Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in laptop hardware. Any additional help is appreciated.

Remove the sound card from device manager and let windows reinstall. If it still does not work, it might need a trip to an authorized technician.