My onboard sound hard has a jack just for speakers. Last year, for some reason, I thought that my speakers were bad, and bought a new set. The left speaker wouldn't make any noise, even on the new set. So I switched to my audio-out jack, and they both worked, but the volume had to be turned up a bit more than normal for volume and all. They both worked that way, though. I bought a Y-splitter today, and wanted to hook my old small speakers (currently duct taped up on the wall above me) to my other set, and have a nice and cheap little surround sound setup (am cheap, and already had the speakers). Here's the problem now. When the splitter is plugged into the audio out, the old speakers (they don't have an independant volume control) are way too quiet. When I plug the splitter up into my actually speaker jack, the left speaker on both sets won't work. Any clues as to how to fix my speaker jack?

If your sound card is old, then the friction connectors may have been deformed from frequent use, this happens alot in portable CD players, but this is a sound card.

Since you had to trun the volume up signifigantly for your new speakers to hear much, splitting the already low signal into another 2 ways has just made the problem worse. Your best bet is to do one of 3 things:

1: Replace the audio jack that you used to use on the sound card
2: Buy a small external audio amp to plug into your sound card, and plug your speakers into that
3: Get a new sound card (They aren't that expensive). I recommend a Sound Blaster PCI 128 or Live! Both are around $15 on Pricewatch.com

These both have separate plugs for front and back speakers. A feature I like alot.

Will get a new sound card eventually. For now, I have them plugged into my normal speaker jack, but went into the speaker options and turned the left up like 400% compared to the right. I managed to balance it out, so I think that will work until I start working on my new computer (to which I'm going to get a real surround-sound setup)