Wiring Front Panel Audio Sockets

[Cenobite]

I have just bought a new case with front panel USB ports, headphone and microphone sockets. I have managed to connect the USB to the mobo (a Matsonic MS8147C+) but I am having a problem connecting the headphone and microphone leads.

This is an image taken from the user manual:

http://members.aol.com:/cenobitespawn/Images/Audio.jpg

The red circles indicate where there are some jumpers connected (the board came with these on).

To wire the microphone and headphone leads to the mobo I have to take these jumpers off, but when everything is connected I then find that I have no audio at all! No audio from my speakers or from headphones connected to the front panel socket. If i unhook the leads from the front panel and replace the jumpers, I get sound back through my speakers.

Even tho I am a bit of a NOOB at hardware it is not a case of wiring it incorrectly as I know which plug goes where (they are labelled the same as the pins), but there is no mention of these jumpers in the instruction book.

I don't know what these jumpers are for or if I should place them somwhere else on the mobo, when adding front panel sockets.

I have on-board sound disabled as I use a creative PCI512 in one of the PCI slots.

What am I doing wrong? Please Help :(

[_John_Lennon_]

Does the sound card have the ability to hook into it? Im wondering if hooking the front panel connectors into your mobo would do any good seeing as how your trying to hook into the system sound I believe, not the PCI Card's sound.

Just a thought. Enable the onboard sound, plug in the audio ports upfront and see if u get any sound.

[clocker]

Your front audio ports DO NOT plug into the jumper panel.
Check your manual and see if there is a onboard audio header. You may not have one, in which case you are either SOL or have to figure a way to hook to the outputs in your I/O panel on the back.

[Spicker]

Originally posted by clocker@30 January 2004 - 03:30
Your front audio ports DO NOT plug into the jumper panel.
Check your manual and see if there is a onboard audio header. You may not have one, in which case you are either SOL or have to figure a way to hook to the outputs in your I/O panel on the back.
i wonder wt would happen if he connected them in to the jumpers...hmm :lol:
the jumpers control the voltages for usb ports, keyboard etc..
lol so dont plug it on to a jumper lol! :lol:

[tesco]

usually removing those sound jumpers on the board change it from i/o panel sound to headphone sound. If you remove those jumpers your speakers hoked up to the back of the computer arent gonna work, but if you hook them up to teh front of the computer (and the headers for the front sound to the motehrboard) then you will get front sound.

this is if you are using onboard sound, im not sure about pci card sound though, i guess it would differ between cards.

[lynx]

These connectors are only for the on-board sound, so if you have it disabled they will not work, but I will explain the function for anyone else who want's the info. You may also have a similar connector on your sound card, if so it would apply to that too.

The two circled jumpers are for left feed and left return (one pair) and for right feed and right return respectively (the other pair), although as you look at them in the picture the ones on the left (5&6) are the right channel and the ones on the right (9&10) are the left channel. If you connect these wrong you won't get any sound from the back panel when you have nothing plugged in the front. Simply keep the jumpers you have removed in a safe place.

Pin 2 is ground. You won't get any sound from the front panel connectors without this also connected.

I believe you should now have two connectors left. These are for the microphone socket. They connect to pins 1&3. Without knowing how they are labelled I can't say which goes where, but if one is simply labelled "Mic" this goes on pin 1.

[TeXasKiDD1]

The manual should the pinouts on AUDIO 1, what signals thay are for wireing.
I allways fire off e-mail to tech sup for your Mainboard, thay just might write you
back? or thay have and updated manual on PDF file, with the pinouts?

[Cenobite]

Here's a little more information:

http://members.aol.com:/cenobitespawn/Images/Audio1.jpg

The leads from the front panel are labelled as follows:

GROUND
MIC-IN
MIC-PWR
RET-R
RET-L
R-OUT
L-OUT

I made a mistake with the previous diagram (sorry) about the placements of the jumpers:

The jumpers are connected to pins 5-6 (AUD_FPOUT_R & AUD_RET_R) and pins 9-10 (AUD_FPOUT_L & AUD_RET_L)

The only pins on the PCI512 sound card are 3 sets of 4 pins labelled TAD, CD-IN and AUX-IN

Will I need a new sound card with the correct pins to enable the front panel headphone and mic sockets?

I'm not so bothered about the mic, just the headphones so I can stop annoying the Mrs with KOTOR while fucking Eastenders is on :D

EDIT: I enabled on-board sound and still got no audio!

[lynx]

Your on-board audio is probably just as good as a PCI512 card, so just dump that card and enable the on-board sound. If you find the audio quality is not good enough, then you will have to buy another card with similar connectors.

Matching your connectors to pins is as follows:

Pin
1 MIC IN
2 GROUND
3 MIC-PWR
5 R-OUT
6 RET-R
9 L-OUT
10 RET-L

You wont get any sound from the front panel if you accidentally swap the out and ret connectors. All you are doing then is connecting the front panel to the rear panel and disconnecting the sound chip from everything.

With the jumpers in place, FPOUT is connected to RET, which goes to the rear panel. Replacing the jumper with the out and ret connectors means the signal goes to the front panel, and with nothing plugged in returns to the rear panel. When you plug in the headphones, you break that circuit and the signal goes to the headphones.

Edit: make sure you are getting sound from the back panel with the jumpers in position first. If you get nothing that way, there is a deeper issue involved, possibly driver related. If it works that way, check the wiring to the front panel. I've come across ones which have been wrongly labeled before now. The 2 Mic connectors (MIC-IN & MIC-PWR) should go to the microphone socket, the other 5 should go to the headphones socket.