text: why won't my headphones work when plugged into the front of my tower? they only work if i plug them into the speaker jack on the back of the tower.  are there special settings i need to mess with?  (one of them is by my cd rom...with its own volume control..the other is with my cd burner, also with it's own volume control). unless the jack is bad, you might want to see if your motherboard supports frontside audio. if you computer isnt factory made, it might have the jacks on the case and not be connected.