[wyocam]

I recently bought a refurbished ASUS laptop on Tigerdirect. I'm now living in Germany and noticed on the way over that when I use my headphones (Sennheiser HD428s) I only get sound on the left side. Whilst on the plane, I stepped out of my seat without realizing they were still plugged in (the cord is nine feet long) and the tip of the pin was slightly bent out of the sleeve. I straightened it as best I could and plugged the phones back in. This is when the right-side audio cut out. After I arrived I tried using some desktop speakers on the laptop and only the subwoofer is putting out any sound, the two other speakers (excuse my lack of lingo) are silent. The audio card on the laptop is a Realtek HD card (the dxdiag entry calls the device "Speakers (2- Realtek High Definition Audio)") and I replaced the drivers today so they shouldn't be the problem. What would you guys suggest I do?

 

[squallkiercosa]

Welcome to Head-fi
Sorry about your wallet. 

Open it and solder the broken pin is an option, probably not the best or easiest. There are no Asus Repair centers in Germany; the closest one is in Bulgary or Russia which makes sending the laptop unthinkable IMO. A small usb DAC/AMP might solve the problem like the Fiio E10 to overcome the jack and connect through USB. There are thousand of models out there.
 
http://www.amazon.de/Fiio-E10-USB-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B005VO7LG6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1375995955&sr=8-3&keywords=fiio
 
http://www.amazon.de/Creative-Sound-Blaster-externe-Soundkarte/dp/B003RRY3WE/ref=pd_sim_ce_33

 

[j4ys]

+1 for squallkiercosa's suggestion. I did something similar to a headphone jack on a laptop (accidentally yanked the headphone cable and bent the internal jack connections). It cost WAY too much to fix, so I just got an external DAC/AMP - which ended up sounding better than my original sound card output, even with just a cheap Fiio E7 or E10. Good luck!

 

[Aerial Wave]

A nice alternative is the Stoner acoustics UD100. Small, cheap and very portable. 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/626632/tiny-dac-big-sound-impression-of-stoner-acoustics-ud100-vs-odac