First off, here's the problem - I've got a vostro V131, i5-2430, running win7 x64. Earlier today, i flashed the BIOS from A05 to A06 (downloaded from the dell support page). Everything works fine, and my laptop speakers work fine as well, so I'm not alerted to any trouble. A little after that, i notice that my earphones don't work when plugged in. Experimenting around, i find out that regular external speakers etc don't work as well. So: sound comes out from the laptop speakers just fine, but everything plugged into the audio jack doesn't work. With anything plugged into the jack, sound just keeps playing from the speakers as usual. I'm worried that i may have bonked a component on the mobo.
On earphones, i can hear some slight hissing/static from the right side - nothing on the left.
I'm not certain, it could well be something else, but since the BIOS update was the only significant change to the system in a while, I'm inclined to think that's what caused the break. I've also trawled the 'nets, tried all the usual driver-side solutions - still nothing. Speaking of drivers, the audio driver is a Conexant SmartAudio HD - (the driver listed for my service tag on Dell Support is the Conexant Audio CX20671 Driver). Also, the v131 has a single audio jack for both speaker/mic.
Dell doesn't allow me to flash my BIOS back to A05 - it says 'does not recommend flashing to older version' or something like that then kicks out of the process. I've also tried running this or that sound diagnostic which is pretty useless, sound just keeps playing from laptop speakers whatever happens. If any screenshots or additional info would help, i'll promptly reply with it!
Also just to throw this out there, warranty on my machine has expired, so tech support's a no.
Help please? Thanks so much.