It seems a lot of Gigabyte boards come with onboard 7.1 audio, but it will only work if you have a front-panel 7.1 audio jack to plug into the relevant header – and I can't seem to find such a thing anywhere!
Does someone here know what I am referring to?
Can't just use the Realtek audio smart jack feature or so to select the output for any jack you use when you plug it in with the sound panel window up?
The only jacks physically present on the motherboard are stereo jacks. If I want to plug in a 7.1 system (or even a 5.1 system), I need something with an optical jack (or a whole bunch of other standard jacks) that plugs into the header on the motherboard.
Or so I understood, anyway.
Yesh my case came with a HD Audio front panel which is basically just an extra jack for speakers/headphones and mic. I think its actually a feature of the case. Looking through the manual it appears that since the motherboard only has 3 output jacks on the rear of the board, you need the front panel speaker output for the side speakers.
Looks like its not required for 5.1 though - you just use the 3 jacks on the rear of the board although then you don't have a mic input.
It shouldn't be too hard just to wire up a couple of audio jacks to your motherboard's HD Audio header... I'm not sure what's so fancy about this 'HD audio' thing as it just looks like extra output jacks on the front panel.
I can't really help more than that as I have Sound Blaster XFi with SPDIF optical output to connect up my speakers.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
What is a "front panel 7.1 audio jack"?
And what is the "relevant header" you mentioned?
Any pictures of the front 7.1 channel panel?
Thanks.
Those jacks propably are just standard headphone and mic jacks, on which you can connect speakers too, and then use the software for your audio device to change them to output stuff to speakers. Google "hd audio front panel". Pretty much thea same as AC'97 connectors, but with extra functionality?
wrote:Those jacks propably are just standard headphone and mic jacks, on which you can connect speakers too, and then use the software for your audio device to change them to output stuff to speakers. Google "hd audio front panel". Pretty much thea same as AC'97 connectors, but with extra functionality?
Ahh, "HD Audio" ! Maybe that's what I should have been Googling for.
The "standard headphone jack" is stereo-only, if I'm not mistaken, so if you want to plug in something more complex than two-channel stereo speakers, that will not get you anywhere.
wrote:What is a "front panel 7.1 audio jack"?
An audio jack (or set of jacks) for 7.1 stereo speakers, set into a panel that is placed in the front panel of a desktop PC. Makes sense?
And what is the "relevant header" you mentioned?
The pictures that come up for a Google search for <hd audio front panel> are illustrative. See also for instance http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page … spx?pid=3590#sp: "To configure 7.1-channel audio, you need connect with the port of HD Audio standard via front panel and enable the multi-channel audio feature through the audio driver."
Any pictures of the front 7.1 channel panel?
If I could find one, I wouldn't have made this thread. I guess the SPDIF jack at http://www.frontx.com/order1.html is something like what I'm looking for.
