"samos" wrote in message
...

If he never uses earphones, he may still need to clean the earphone jack
because it contains a switch to cut out the speaker, and if the switch
contacts get dirty, the speaker stops working.

the problem isn't that theres no sound coming from the speaker ... the
problem is that it is very very weak, no matter how loud the volume
thingie is turned up.

Right, just what you'd expect if those contacts are dirty, so that there is
a high resistance in series with the speaker.