Disable Computer Audio Prank

Have you ever spent half an hour troubleshooting an audio problem in your sound system only to find out that there were a pair of headphones plugged in?  This simple easy prank which uses only a dead pair of headphones and wire cutters, makes use of the detect headphones feature built into computers, mp3 players, and almost anything with a 3.5mm headphone jack.  When a pair of headphones are plugged in, the computer automatically reroutes the audio signal from the internal (or external) speakers to the headphones jack.

What we will be doing is making an inconspicuous device that plugs into a 3.5mm jack that sucks up all the signal, but doesnt send it to any speakers.

NOTE: this gag works best on a computer with the headphones jack located on the back or separate from the monitor

Step 1 Choose the Headphones

First you need to choose the phones to operate on.  Airline headphones work well because they are cheap audiotrocities and you should have no regrets cutting them to shreds.

Comments

[knexfan9182]

Or go into system services and disable the audio card.

[brucedamoose16]

I know there are easier and more sophisticated ways to disable the audio, but the point of this is to turn it off using a method people wont expect. If you google "computer sound wont work" you come up with all these questions people have and the answers they get are to check if its muted, check the sound card, and check if the drivers are up to date. people wont be expecting a hardware error and theyll scramble around a little before finding the real problem.

[knexfan9182]

The first thing i do is to check if everything is plugged in.

[ac1D]

If both wire make contact(And they will) You could damage the motherboard. Stupid idea.

[metalman1138]

lol was thinking the same thing

[brucedamoose16]

point taken, so the wires would need to be cut at different levels to prevent shorting. and are motherboards really build without failsafes on the headphones jack? like usb ports turn off for a period of time after drawing too much current (500mA i believe). because headphones i use often short at the base because of the way i fold them and it seems like there should be a failsafe in place there..