New sound card and fpaudio?

[jcburgwin]

Hi,

I have been using the on-board audio for some time now and would like
to install a pci soundcard (sb audigy). Not being particularly
experienced at installing hardware I looked at a few site about
installing sound cards.

Some sites mention connecting a cable from the cd-rom/dvd drive to the
sound card (cd-in) while others state that this is not necessary.

I have just opened up my computer and tried to locate this cable from
the cd-rom/dvd drive but there does not appear to be one. The
motherboard is an ABIT Kv8 Pro. The only other connections I can see
is something called fpaudio1 which I believe is for front panel audio.

So my question is, if I were to buy an audigy sound card would I need
to connect it to my drive? And also what happens to the fpaudio when I
disable on-board sound in the BIOS? What is the fpaudio actually used
for anyway?

So my plan is this:-

1. Boot up computer and disable on-board sound in BIOS
2. Go into control panel and disable the audio options relating to the
on board sound.
3. turn off computer and install audigy card in a free pc slot, connect
speakers etc.
4. Turn on pc and wait for wizard to show up.
5. Canacl this and use driver cd to install new drivers.
6. restart with enhanced (hopefully) sound.

Is this correct?

Cheers, Jason

 

[kony]

Hi,

I have been using the on-board audio for some time now and would like
to install a pci soundcard (sb audigy). Not being particularly
experienced at installing hardware I looked at a few site about
installing sound cards.

Some sites mention connecting a cable from the cd-rom/dvd drive to the
sound card (cd-in) while others state that this is not necessary.

It is a direct analog signal from the drive to the input on
the sound card. IF you have use for that, you do need a
cable connection to make it happen. Semi-modern OS like
Windows 98SE & newer can get the audio as digital data
through the drive controller so there is no need for using
this analog line for "most" users/uses.

I have just opened up my computer and tried to locate this cable from
the cd-rom/dvd drive but there does not appear to be one. The
motherboard is an ABIT Kv8 Pro. The only other connections I can see
is something called fpaudio1 which I believe is for front panel audio.

It would be a line-in socket, 3 pins, IF there is one on the
board. Usually there is but a manufacturer could leave it
off the board if they chose to, to save a nickel and a
centimeter of board space.

So my question is, if I were to buy an audigy sound card would I need
to connect it to my drive? And also what happens to the fpaudio when I
disable on-board sound in the BIOS? What is the fpaudio actually used
for anyway?

No you do not need the drive cable if the system currently
does all you need with regards to getting sound from the
drive... the Audigy can also do that, as it is an operating
system feature not specific to any sound card.

You cannot use the FPAUDIO header with anything but the
integrated audio. If you disable that audio it won't work.
It is used to route sound to the front (or another aux.
location) of the (case, usually) for better access than the
rear sound ports. Often, if the case supports it, that also
allows disabling the rear sound jacks by plugging in a jack
to this aux audio socket. For example, if you had speakers
hooked up to the rear sound out jacks and plugged a pair of
headphones into a case's front audio out jack, it would
effectively mute the speakers by breaking the signal going
to that rear output jack.

Some sound cards have a similar FPAUDIO header on them too,
but others don't. Audigy- I don't recall.

So my plan is this:-

1. Boot up computer and disable on-board sound in BIOS
yes

2. Go into control panel and disable the audio options relating to the
on board sound.

no, go into add/remove programs and uninstall the driver.
There should be no "disabling" necessary. At worst, wait
till after you have the new card and driver installed to go
into Multimedia properties in Control Panel and check
settings- there's no point in checking them before you even
uninstall the old driver. However, if you had a
windows-bundled driver, you may not even need to use
add/remove programs, can just disable it in the bios.

3. turn off computer and install audigy card in a free pc slot, connect
speakers etc.

Turn off the AC power to the system first. Ground yourself
to guard against static discharge.

4. Turn on pc and wait for wizard to show up.
5. Canacl this and use driver cd to install new drivers.

Personally, I'd download the newest driver for the Audigy,
never installing the old driver on the CD. It can help to
not have old remnants of drivers but only the single copy of
the new driver. Usually it doesn't matter but it's those
odd times it helps, and is generally better to just start
out with the newer driver.

6. restart with enhanced (hopefully) sound.

Is this correct?

In theory, you should do fine. It's those odd times that
things dont' work as they should that require more fiddling.

 

[jcburgwin]

Hi Kony, what a superb reply! Thanks for taking the time to go through
all of that, much appreciated.

I feel confident enough to install a new card now!

Cheers, Jason

 

[DaveW]

Yes your directions are accurate. As for the audio cable from the sound
card to the optical drive, if you are using XP as your OS then you do NOT
need to connect an audio cable. In XP the audio signal from the optical
drive is sent over the data ribbon cable. This was not true in earlier
versions of Windows.

 

[jcburgwin]

Hi DaveW, thanks for the reply.

Yes I am using XP.

 

[kony]

Yes your directions are accurate. As for the audio cable from the sound
card to the optical drive, if you are using XP as your OS then you do NOT
need to connect an audio cable. In XP the audio signal from the optical
drive is sent over the data ribbon cable. This was not true in earlier
versions of Windows.

Wrong again. There is very little XP does that the past 3
OS can't do, and that includes this. Win98, ME, and 2K all
do it fine. It is a setting in the properies (in Dev. Mgr)
named similar to "Enable Digital-Audio for this CDROM
Device". It does not matter if it's a DVD or CD( RW) drive,
the wording remains the same, IIRC.