Help Installing Front Panel Audio

Greetings Geeks.

I recently ordered a new case for my new build that was inhabiting a 15 year old case. My new one has a few more contemporary features, such as front panel audio. I would like to use headphones from the front panel on occasion.

The case in question is a modest Antec 300. The audio jacks on the front panels have 2 leads, one is labeled "AC97" and the other one is labeled "HDA." I have tried connecting both to the motherboard, with no luck.

The installed sound card is an SB Audigy 2. The motherboard is an Asus M3A770DE. The leads from the panel are 5 pin female. My cars has a 4 pin interface, so I cannot try them with the card. The board does have onboard audio, which I have disabled as the SB is installed. Do I need to use onboard sound to use the front panel audio? Otherwise I can't figure out how the software and hardware would know to disable the SB and use the front panel audio.

So, how can I get my front panel audio working?

Thanks for any help.

 

Hi 20Valve,

The problem that you have is that the socket on the motherboard is for your onboard audio. If your onboard audio is disabled you wont get any sound you will need to find a socket on your Audicy to plug your front panel audio into.

Alternatively and this is a much bigger pita you would need to enable your onboard sound then whenever you want to use your headphones go into control panel and change your audio device from audigy to onboard. Not a great option!

 

I have a plug on the Audigy, but the case plug is a 5 pin with a blank and the Audigy is a four pin. Maybe an adapter? I already ordered a molex to female 4 pin for my case fans to be controlled by the motherboard BIOS. It seems a new fangled case still might have a few niggles.

I wonder why they assume we all want to use onboard audio. Would a newer sound card have the correct interface I wonder?

 

Just a shot in the dark here. Your not able to fit the five pin into the four pin slot are you? I ask because that's how my Zalman CPU fan has to be setup my board has three pin power connector while the Zalman has a four pin. Yes, the Zalman works perfectly.

 

The only thing that you won't be able to do with that setup is control your fan speed.