Windows 7 Extremely annoying speaker problem

Hello I have a Dell Inspiron 17 laptop. I like it so far except for one thing. It will only use speakers and headphones as a "communication device". IE, I can only get sound to come out of them when doing a voice chat while playing a game or using skype. I have gone into playback devices and clicked on speaker settings "set as default device" and nothing happened. Is it a headphone and speaker problem or a windows problem? Any ideas appreciated.