Headphone jack not working. Tried every suggestion on the net

Samsung Laptop

Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Processor AMD A6-3420M APU with Radeon HD Graphics
RAM - 8 GB
System Type - 64 Bit
Sound controllers
AMD High Def Audio Device
Realtek HD Audio

I have been using this laptop for 4 years. Sound worked fine. When I would plug in headphones it was still fine except the sound would only come through the headphones (which I was happy with). About a month ago I noticed that when I would plug in headphones into the jack on the side of the laptop that he sound continued to play through the PC speakers as well as the headphones. There was no task bar notification that the headphone was plugged in or removed. As of a couple of weeks ago, the sound doesn't come through the headphones. It continues to play through the PC speakers even with headphones plugged in.

What I have tried:

Different headphones. These work fine on anything else. Other working headphones do not work on this PC.
Update drivers. I tried this as well as uninstalling all sound drivers and rebooting to let the sound card be found and reinstalled and reboot again. I tried this by letting the installation use the Windows drivers. Didn't work so I tried and again and directed the installation (per several suggestions on the internet). No good.
Opened Realtek Audio Manager to tweak settings. There isn't much there. The little yellow folder that many speak of is not there nor are "front panel", "rear panel" icons. The only tabs in Realtek Audio Manager are "speaker" and "microphone".
Opening playback devices there is no headset shown as a playback device. If i select "show disabled devices" it still doesn't appear.
I am probably failing to write everything I have tried but this is what I remember.

Any suggestions?