Terry said:
My case has a mic and speaker jack in the front, but the connection
has a 1/4 stero plug. There is no place on the mobo to plug this in.
My sound card is a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. What do I need to modify
the cables I have to work with the soundcard I have?
Thanks for your time
The front panel cabling on computer cases, may consist of a set of
wires with 0.1" center to center connectors on the end. This is
normally connected to the FP_AUDIO header on the motherboard.
The motherboard will have a 2x5 header with pins sticking up,
and that is where the computer case front panel cable goes.
The following cable assembly, is an example of what is built
into the front of many computer cases.
http://www.frontx.com/cpx110.html
Sound cards vary in functionality, depending to some extent on
price. A 2x5 header is not one of their priorities, so you may
not see that on a sound card too often. Sound cards tend to go
in a different direction. If you want front panel sound, you
buy their "extension box" which fits in a 5 1/4" disk drive bay.
This is the bay for a Creative Audigy.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/multimedia/creative-audigy2/drive.jpg
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/creative-audigy2.html
Some sound cards do have extension connectors on their surface,
but the connector pinout is not documented. In some cases, the
connector signals are digital, and are not intended for direct
connection of analog cabling. Some companies have made sound
cards with an extension connector, but never designed anything
to plug into that connector.
Basically, the sound card companies do everything they can,
to frustrate the user who wants to connect front panel
headphone and microphone. If you succeed at it, you're a
genius
Frontx makes cable assemblies that can be used. The following page
has cable assemblies, that you plug into the normal sound card
connectors, then snake the cables through a PCI slot where the
faceplate has been removed. That allows the cables to be brought
to the front of the computer. Then, you install a FrontX bay to
hold the connectors.
http://www.frontx.com/order1.html
For example, you can see a series of wires here, that allow
bringing signals from the back of the computer, to a bay
mounted in a 5 1/4" front disk drive bay.
http://www.frontx.com/cpx100_2.gif
You can waste a lot of money trying to fix it.
Paul
