Dummy question about headphone jack

[DaisyHead]

Caveat: Newbie's first post!

Greetings gents. On cases with the front mounted headphone jack, how do you go about connecting this? i.e. where do you connect it to?

Follow up question. My current CD-RW drive has no headphone jack. I'd like to listen to CDs and MP3s without disturbing others. Can I add a headphone jack to the front of the case? I know I can use the speaker jack in the back, but this is a PITA.

 

[Need4Speed]

welcome!

usually ull need a patch cable from the soundcard to the frontmounted jack, that will generally loop through an empti pci slot on the case.

 

[Xanthguy]

Or you could do what I do... Hook your souncard output to your stereo system. Then you can just plug your headphones in there.

--Xg

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Welcome to anandtech! Anyway, does your case have a front headphone jack? There should be a cable hooked up to it, which goes through the inside of the case, and out the back, and pluged into the sound card.

 

[tart666]

also, on certain soundcards (eg live!), there's some pins specifically for the front jack. That way the sound card will detect when something is plugged in in the front, and cut the rear speaker signal.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: tart666
also, on certain soundcards (eg live!), there's some pins specifically for the front jack. That way the sound card will detect when something is plugged in in the front, and cut the rear speaker signal.

Yup some cards have a little header that's specifically meant for connecting the front port(s) .... just like connecting front USB or FW ports to your mobo.

Thorin

 

[DaisyHead]

Originally posted by: tart666
also, on certain soundcards (eg live!), there's some pins specifically for the front jack. That way the sound card will detect when something is plugged in in the front, and cut the rear speaker signal.

I have a Dell at work that has speaker jack in the back and headphone jack in the front. When I plug in the headphone, the speaker cuts off. I opened up the case to see how they wired it and found out they used all built-in sound and video. The front headphone jack came off a small circuit board right behind the front bezel and plugged directly into the mobo. Would you guys know what Athlon mobo has this feature? Also, if there's a mobo that has that feature, would it work with the wiring from a case that has front audio like this one? Thanks.

Lian-Li PC60H1S