Thanks, Ted. Point well taken. My hope is to get Bestbuy to fix it before it fails. It's certainly not going to get any better, only worse. It is already shorting some due to sloppy fit. When the warranty is gone, I can envision the potential of it being expensive.

Hey Bill

I just remembered what the guy at Best Buy told me about my laptop. I misspoke. The jack does not actually come unsoldered from the motherboard. The little printed circuit solder "lands" that the jack connections solder to stay soldered to the jack leads. Instead, the physical force rips the "lands" loose from the printed circuit board. Eventually, the "lands" tear loose from the circuit foil and you lose the connection. When the bad jack is removed, those "lands" come with it, so there is nothing left to solder the new jack leads to. To the average repair person, this means a motherboard replacement. That's why the estimate was so high.

Ted

I'm afraid I agree with Ted, it's not a cheap fix because it's never very easy and as a result it ends up as a new motherboard job.

Even if the fault is a only a failure of the plastic ring and the motherboard is not damaged it is still quite tricky to remove the socket.

The components that go through the motherboard tend to be interference fit then wave soldered. The clearance between the pins of the socket and the hole in the motherboard is that small that it's almost impossible to remove the solder so that the pin is actually free. You have to get all the solder melted on all the pins at the same time and remove the socket in one go without applying that much heat that the pcb is damaged.

Not to mention trying to get the exact replacement socket....

John,

I have a vacuum bulb that sucks the melted solder from the connection very cleanly, thereby allowing you to do one connection at a time. The iron I use has a tiny tip and I always heat sink all the surrounding components. I agree, though, this is not an easy fix--even for a trained technician.

Cheers,

Gary

I found out my laptop is covered by warranty but Bestbuy says it will not fix it but ship it to Dell and it takes two weeks to get it back. That's not an option.

I got to thinking that if I could just find an adaptor cable, 1/4" female to USB, that would be best solution. I can't find one. I also searched for 1/8" female to USB, no luck.

The reason I don't want to buy one of the USB audio interfaces mentioned on this thread is that it's rather cumbersome to have that dongle hanging off. It'll work, yes.

My headphone cable has 1/4" male on end. I just need to go into USB. I guess that would work if I could find one?

Bummer, laptop is only five months old. Bestbuy confirmed the jack is on the motherboard.

Bill, you might try calling Dickie Turner. He and his son have a repair shop, Computer Clinic, on Youree Drive and they would understand you need it quickly. Todd T. is a really good technician.
DonM

The Bestbuy guy indicated that it would likely be a motherboard replacement, that despite skill level, trying to mend it would be futile. But, worth a call, yep.