Rather odd soundcard problem

[Auraomega]

Hi all, I'm having a rather odd soundcard problem on my Vista box. Whilst listening to music or a movie or playing a game or whatever, my sound has been stopping and I havn't had a clue why, I earlier uninstalled the driver and software and re-installed it all, so everything reverted to default settings. Now when my sound stops it says a new device has been attached in my front jack ports where the headphones go, it even displays this port as active but I can be assured that the port is empty.

This phantom headphone has only started appearing since I updated Vista, I'm currently scanning my PC for viruses (first scan so I'm dreading it), but I just want to know if anyone else has had the same problems? I'm using a 5.1 setup and it also keeps saying my rear speakers connect and disconnect.

I've disabled my front panel as a temp fix but I'm still losing rear sound during a movie occasionally, but I'm obviously looking for a more perminant fix that means I'll be able to use the card as designed. If nothing comes up I'll probably revert back to before the Vista updates but if you can suggest anything I'll give it a shot.

-Aura

[mohaas05]

There is a spring inside the jack that is pressed when a connector is inserted, telling the computer that something is in it. It's possible that this may be faulty.

[Auraomega]

Yeah I'm pretty certain its not that, the PC is new (about 3 months old) and I've never plugged anything into the front. My virus scan returned a couple of hundred spyware and a virus, removed it with no fix so I used system restore - the problems gone now so apparently some update didn't agree with my driver, a shame really but I'd rather my speakers work over updating, my PC is just for games, music and movies so security isn't at the top of my list.

Also, I thought it was the tip grounding a signal that triggered the indication, not a spring? I remember back when the PSP motion sensor came out, those of us who got the early one hacked the end off so we could get sound still.

-Aura