Cannot get sound through my USB headset

Question

The headset I have is wired but it has a USB connector (am not very good at IT) I put the USB connection into my PC and I couldn't seem to find any way to get sound through my headset

Please help.

I have Realtek HD audio manager and I have windows 7 64 bit

What should I do?

Solution 1

In the case that you have a built-in sound card on your mother board, something most consumer motherboards have now a days the case might be that Windows is still trying to output sound through the built in sound card instead of sending the music through your headphones.

If you right click your speaker symbol down to the right on your screen and choose Playback devices, you will be given a list of devices which can output sound, like the screenshot below. You should be able to see your headphones there. If it is not there then Windows is not recognizing your headphones and you have to find out why. Chances are that you just need to install proper drivers for it.

In the case that you do find your headphones there, it should have a green circle with a tick inside it like the screenshot below telling that is the device being used for outputting sound. If not, then it is simply a matter of telling windows that you want sound through this device instead of the other device used before.

I have no way to test this here so I leave the rest for you to find out. At least you can debug your problem further with the little information I gave you.

Cheers.

Solution 2

USB headphones do not work the same way as headphones that are plugged into the audio output jack in your computer. USB headphones will require hardware drivers. In some cases they will come with a drivers disc, but in most cases they will require hardware drivers the OS is likely to include. Why? Because USB headphones are not connecting to an existing sound card. They are connecting to the USB subsystem, and the computer must recognize this new device and communicate with it properly. That's what drivers are for. Here's another good question at Superuser that addresses this from a different angle.

Did the computer go through the process of informing you that new hardware was installed and is ready for use after you connected the headset? Did the headset come with a drivers disc? What kind of headphones are these? Can you provide a make and model number so we can look up a product page and any support issues they might have?

Solution 3

Right click the speaker icon in the taskbar, go to recording devices then disable the microphone. Next go to playback devices enable the headset and set it to default.

Comments

[Alvin Wong]

How could you ever put a USB "thing" into a hard drive? Do you mean the USB connector on your computer?

[Carl B]

@user216768 - when you opened the Realtek control panel, is there a tab for headphones at the top?

[Mogget]

You have to have a certain amount of reputation before you are allowed to comment on posts or other peoples answers and comments. You earn reputation points by for example asking questions and answering other peoples questions.

[Thalys]

I'm confused about the downvote since the answer is pretty much correct. USB headsets are detected as USB soundcards in general.