NJ5 on 27 April 2009
Usually speakers are plug and play, but some sound card drivers do some stupid things. For example, my (on-board) sound card has two jacks, one for speakers and one for earphones. If you plug in earphones, it detects that and disables the speakers by software, which causes some software to need a restart if you unplug the earphones.
However, in your case you have plugged earphones directly into the speakers and it works, which means the speakers are getting the signal. That probably means the speakers themselves don't work.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
