The idea with the front panel was great, of course, but the implementation, as always, was disappointing.
The printed circuit board next to the front panel in many cases contains a USB port with a common ground plane.
This creates a powerful "ground loop" that redirects all the interference from the processor, hard drive, USB to the sound card and all its outputs.

If you are worried about a separate sound card, you should not spoil the impression of it by listening to all this noise.

shevalier wrote on 2025-08-03, 04:12:

The idea with the front panel was great, of course, but the implementation, as always, was disappointing. The printed circuit bo […]
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The idea with the front panel was great, of course, but the implementation, as always, was disappointing.
The printed circuit board next to the front panel in many cases contains a USB port with a common ground plane.
This creates a powerful "ground loop" that redirects all the interference from the processor, hard drive, USB to the sound card and all its outputs.

If you are worried about a separate sound card, you should not spoil the impression of it by listening to all this noise.

S/PDIF to a well designed external DAC is my choice.
Re: If your card has noisy analogue out, but also has S/PDIF (coaxial or optical) digital out, cheap "OK" DACs exist

egbertjan wrote on 2025-08-02, 18:40:

I have two retro computers with a Creative Soundblastster Audigy 2 SB0240 installed. I saw a cable on eBay https://www.ebay.nl/itm/262328580944?_skw=sb0 … ABk9SR_bA-cCNZg for these sound cards for the front audio jack of the case. Will this cable work with the AC97 front jack of my case? Does anyone have experience with this cable, and how do you configure the Creative software to work with the front jacks on the card in Windows 98SE?

I used one of these with a Windows XP installation and an Audigy 2 ZS sound card. It worked right out of the box. The only issue I recall was that both the front and rear outputs were always active simultaneously, rather than switching automatically depending on which output was in use—like you'd expect with traditional setups.

The arrangement of the pins in the black connector might or might not be right for the implementation in your case but all the wires that come out of the sound card via the white connector are the right ones to connect to a front panel.

And I know thats a long way around saying maybe but as not all cases are made equal its the best you can get.
I have one on one of my SB cards and it works on one case but not on another.