HP dv71020us. Owned the laptop for 13 months and this never happened before. Audio does not come out of speakers until a headphone jack is placed in one of the front holes. When there is something connected it plays out of the computer and not the extra speakers. Worked fine, put it in sleep mode, 2 hours later went to use it and this is where I am. Restarted, checked playback devices, turned off, removed battery, smacked it, no solution...HELP.

Your issue from what I read is a setting issue.
you have your setting in headphone mode from what I gather and you need to place the setting for the sound card in output mode which is in the Windows sound setting.
1.Check the task bar where the speaker icon is ( Windows 7) or Windows XP.
2. Left click here and your volume control will show with a caption of "mixer" at the bottom.
3. Left click this hyper link and it will show you the properties of the speak device.
4. If you see a speak icon on the left >> click it and you will then see a tabs window
with tab label across with "general being 1st.
5. click the "level" tab and you will see the l"line in" microphone etc. They may be muted click the muted sign to enable.
6. then check sound.