Vista says speakers not plugged in?

Right, this is a long story that starts yesterday. I plugged my guitar into the line in jack in the back of my computer. Suddenly the audio just crackled and died completely (I know my headphones are fine because I tested them on my iPod). I opened up the Realtek HD Audio manager and it then stopped responding so I closed it. Upon restart I got the "No audio output device is installed" error so I went through what seemed like every realtek driver that has ever existed in order to try and get this to work. I now have it so that under my playback devices it says Speakers not plugged in and the only other device there is "Realtek High Definition Audio" but turning it up still results in no sound. The setup I have is a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable plugged into the Green output in the back but it isn't connected to anything as it won't reach my monitor. In the front I have a USB powered turtle beach x11 going into the green in the front. I don't know if its possible to blow an audio jack and if it is I may have done that with my guitar. Please help its driving me mad!

 

Yes, it is possible to blow an input jack.

What you could try, if you have something that can generate audio (like MP3 player or Cell Phone), is to open the Resource Monitor, connect that device to the input jack, and see if anything displays.