Windows 10: The headphones on my laptop work, but only sometimes

I have an Inspiron 15 Laptop with Windows 11, and I've been facing this issue since I first got it half a year ago. When I plug in my headphones, they work occasionally, for example, if I turn on the computer while plugged in, it's fine. But if I then unplug them, and plug them in just as I had before, my laptop suddenly can't detect themI've tried all the basic solutions like rebooting, updating the drivers, trying different headphones, testing Bluetooth Bluetooth also only plays audio sometimes, but I don't use it enough for it to be significant messing with the headphones settings in the

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Unable To Connect Boase Headphones To ASUS Laptop.

Hi Chris,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



In order to get clarity on this issue and assist you with appropriate troubleshooting steps, please reply with the answers to the questions below.

1. What is the model number of the Bose headphone?
   
2. How are you trying to connect the headphones to the laptop?
   
3. What is the model number of your ASUS laptop?
   
4. Are you using a wired or a wireless Bose headphone?
   

I suggest you to follow the steps mentioned in Connecting To A Computer
and try connecting your headphones to the laptop.



If you are still facing issues connecting the headphones to the laptop, I suggest you to elaborate on the issue, so that we can understand the concern and reply to us to help you further.

 

Headphone not working when connected to laptop

Hi Maxwell,

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Community.

We understand that your headphone isn’t working when connected to your laptop . We will be glad to help you with this.

To assist you better, do let us know if your speaker works fine when you unplug the headphone.

Sometimes this issue could occur when you don’t set your headphone/speaker to default.

Please follow the steps below to set your headphone as the default device for audio.

1. Right click on the speaker icon on the notification area (right bottom corner of your screen).

2. Click on “playback”

3. Check if the headphone is listed there, if so, right click
on it and choose enable.

4. Highlight the headphone and click on "Set as Default".

Once you are done with the steps, repeat step 1 and select volume mixer. Please make sure that all the volumes are turned up to the highest and check if it works.

If this doesn’t help, we suggest you to
refer to this link for steps on how to update audio drivers.

Do get back to us with the result and we will be glad to help if you need further assistance.

 

Headphones not working.

Hi Haylee,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community and being a part of Windows 10.

I understand your concern about accessing the headphones on your device. We will help you with this issue.

Do let us know the following to assist you better with this issue:

• What is the make and model of your device?
• What are the troubleshooting steps you have tried to resolve the issue?
• How have you connected the headphones to your device?
• Were you able to see if the headphones detected on your computer?

As a work around, try the below and update us the status of this issue:

• I suggest you to connect the headphones to different device and check if the headphone is working fine. This will help us to detect if the issue is with headphone.
• If headphones are working fine on other devices, try to connect the headphones to different ports on the PC in the question and check if it is working fine. This will help us to know if the issue is with ports.

I recommend you to install all the pending updates on your device and check if it helps.

Steps:

• Connect to the internet.
• Press Windows key and type updates.
• Click on Check for updates.
• Under Windows Updates, click on Check for updates.
• Try to install the updates being shown.

Hope it helps. Try the above and update us the status of this issue with the required information, we will be happy to help you further.