Help - K8N Audio Problem?

[JT9889]

I need to find out if there's a problem with my new K8N (specifically
the audio).

I was checking the audio output (first with onboard Realtek audio then
with my Audigy 2 ZS card) by playing a regular music CD (using Media
Player 9) and noticed the sound came out when there was *no audio cable*
connected to either my Toshiba CDROM or Liteon drives (in moving things
around I forgot to attach the audio cables at one point). When I
reconnected the analog audio cables there's noticeable hiss/crackling
heard in the output jacks, but the music still came out. When I took
off the audio cables, the crackling from the output jacks disappeared. I
have the Instant Music feature disabled in the BIOS.

I'm scratching my head over this one. How can the audio from the
CDROM/DVDRW drives be heard without the audio cables being attached to
the respective audio connectors on the K8N or Audigy card? I initially
had them attached. But the sound is better when they aren't. All I have
attached now are the flat ribbon drive cables and the power connector.
Am I supposed to use the audio cables for the K8N or leave them off? Or
is something wrong with my board?

I've reinstalled the operating system, tried different PCI slots for
Audigy, left Audigy off and used onboard audio only, changed BIOS
settings for audio (used AUTO, DISABLED, ENABLED). Tried "Digital" and
"Analog" settings in the drive properties. Had no effect on crackling or
hissing heard on output jacks. But still the sound output has noticeble
hiss when the audio cables are attached.




My system has the following:

K8N (flashed with latest BIOS 1009)
Sempron 64 3100+
2-512MB Mushkin Basic
Maxtor 120G ATA/133
Audigy 2 ZS
Liteon DVDRW
Toshiba 48x CDROM
WINXP Home


-JT9889

 

[Robert Hancock]

I need to find out if there's a problem with my new K8N (specifically
the audio).

I was checking the audio output (first with onboard Realtek audio then
with my Audigy 2 ZS card) by playing a regular music CD (using Media
Player 9) and noticed the sound came out when there was *no audio cable*
connected to either my Toshiba CDROM or Liteon drives (in moving things
around I forgot to attach the audio cables at one point). When I
reconnected the analog audio cables there's noticeable hiss/crackling
heard in the output jacks, but the music still came out. When I took
off the audio cables, the crackling from the output jacks disappeared. I
have the Instant Music feature disabled in the BIOS.

Don't bother hooking up the audio cables. If you are using digital
playback mode (which WMP defaults to) there is no need for them. The
sound quality will be better anyway.