Headphones provide only background sound

This is actually a bit weird problem. Whenever I plug in my earphones on my PC, I hear only the background sound. But if I press and hold the receiver button on my earphones, I hear both vocal and background sound. But when I plug the earphones halfway through, I hear both vocal and background sound but in mono, no stereo. This problem is killing me... I need a solution! I didn't have the problem before... * I tried cleaning the port on my laptop * I tried reinstalling my sound drivers

Question by MRahman on Super User, licensed CC BY-SA. We show a short excerpt and link to the original thread as credit.