Dual Sound Cards?

[Artician]

Is this possible? I have an onboard chip on my Asus M2N mainboard, and also an X-Fi soundblaster. I want to run both because I use a surround sound headset (Zalman) with my X-Fi, but I get sick of switching out my jacks when I want to use my speakers. Was hoping to use my speakers with the onboard chip and keep my headphones plugged into the XFi for gaming.
Normally I have to disable the onboard sound chip in order for the XFi to work, otherwise it overrules the soundblaster card somehow. This is where my lack of knowledge gets in the way. I've run with a disabled onboard sound card for years, but if someone knows a way to enable the onboard sound card without it interfering with the other hardware, I would be appreciative for some insight.

 

[corkyg]

Depends on your mobo. Mine specifically states that the onboard sound must be disabled if a sound card is used. Otherwise, you have conflict. Read your mobo manual.

 

[Artician]

I checked the manual first before posting, however it does not touch on this topic at all.

Most likely it's unsupported, since I believe most people encounter the same situation that I do when both are enabled. Thanks for the reply!

 

[btcomm1]

Well, actually as far as I know you can have both sound cards installed but you would have to switch them in the sound control panel under the audio tab, you can chose default device, as far as using them at the same time, I don't think windows allows that, it has to be one or the other under default device.

 

[shamgar03]

I know this isn't what you are looking for, but you can buy USB headsets that would allow you to quickly switch back and forth. Example: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech...374-0403/dp/B0007SXHP0 . Once you get into windows the USB device will show up as a second sound device which you can switch to for output/input.

For the most part, I don't think you can run both, although you COULD try playing with IRQ settings in the bios. Heres the explanation on those. All your peripherals run on a bus, the PCI bus. IRQ's are basically interrupts, which you have a limited number of. Each peripheral needs an interrupt so that it can run, although sometimes they can share interrupts (though this can cause problems). Your goal would be to assign two different IRQ's to your two different sound cards which COULD force the motherboard to accept both. I don't really know if this could work or not. Also note that IRQs can cause seriously strange bugs and random crashes.

 

[Fardringle]

There are simple switches that you can plug speakers and headphones into. Then you just select the output that you want to use and not have to worry about disconnecting plugs or enabling both sound cards.


Amazon has one from Plantronics for about $16.

Here is another from Circuit City for $8.

Or, if you don't like either of those options, just do a Google search for headphone and speaker switch to get about 150,000 more results.

 

[bwatson283]

buy a 1/16 spliter cable so the headphones and the surround sound will always be plugged in.

http://www.audiogear.com/cgi-b...T2MSFMSM&preadd=action