*solved*
 

My speakers work fine; however, when I plug in headphones I only get sound in the left headphone or ear bud. The balance is in the middle and I've tried multiple headphones and all them have the same issue. Any ideas?

are your speakers suffering from the same issue? the balance you checked..was that in both the media player and windows sound options?

if it's still not working, your headphone input is probably defective

My laptop speakers are fine in terms of balance, I also plugged in external speakers and they are also fine with balance. It seems to only be headphones that I'm having that problem with.

Same thing happened to me.. I had to plug it in extra hard, and put pressure with a finger/heavy object on the jack to the left, may be to the left for you, to get sound in both sides...

For me the problem is the sound input hole thing.. don't really know what its called.. its a shitty problem.

if you're technically saavy, try replacing the headphone jack.