Front panel audio header cable adapter/extender?

[frau kaleun]

Hey all - hope someone here can help me out with this. I want to run my front panel audio cable (9 pin) to the FP header on my sound card so I can use the FP headphone jack. The connector for this splits off from the one that goes to the motherboard and unfortunately there's only about 1 1/2" of cable to work with for this auxiliary connector, which is way short of what I need to reach the sound card. And I can't move the sound card because it's in the only slot I can put it in.

Is there some kind of extender cable or adapter I can get to make this work? I've found places where I can buy a 9 pin FP audio header cable, but they're all female/female. I need something that's all boy on one end, and all girl on the other, or else an adapter that will do a quick sex change on end end of a female/female cable.

I keep typing in what I think are the appropriate search terms everywhere I can think of to look, but the results are getting me nowhere. I can live without the front panel audio if I have to, but it's there and I'd like to make it work if it's at all possible.

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

[Reece]

It would be helpful if you could show a picture of the connector, is it a standard header with 1mm spacing, I assume the header is 2 rows of 5 with one blanked.

[frau kaleun]

That sounds right, standard HD and/or AC'97 I guess. The one marked HD connects the front panel audio jacks to a motherboard pinout like the one here



and there's an identical connector that's split off to go to the same type of pinout on an audio card, but the cable on it isn't long enough to get there.

[Arclight]

You could try contacting your case's manufacturer and see if you can arrange for a longer FP audio cable. Alternatively, you can modify a "USB 10-pin internal header extension cable", though it might be a bit finicky.

[Reece]

The best way out would be to unsolder the wiring at the front panel sockets & extend them using heat shrink over the soldered wire joints, but I assume you don't have the soldering gear or the equipment and parts.

[frau kaleun]

Just lengthening the cable from the front panel out won't help - the two connectors are placed less than two inches apart at the other end of it, so unless the sound card pinout is that close to the motherboard pinout I can only connect one of them at a time. My sound card is PCIe and the only PCIe slot on the motherboard is, you guessed it, as far away from the board's FP audio pinout as it possibly could be.

And you're right, I don't have the soldering gear anyway, lol. And I was really hoping to solve the issue by just extending the cable at the loose end since that would be the simplest and quickest solution *if* an extension option exists. I was setting up a brand new system (yay!) and I needed to get it up and running over the holiday weekend while I had the time to do the job and put back all the stuff I had to temporarily move/disconnect/etc. just to get the old machine out and the new one in. I really don't want to have to pull the new machine out and crack it open again and start pulling stuff out if I don't have to, especially for something that's not vital. It just bugs me to have a feature that *could* work but doesn't because of something as minor as a cable being a couple inches too short.

Now if I could move the first connector farther back on the cable, and lengthen the distance between it and the other one, it would help. There might be enough slack in the cable to do that and then see if it's something I can manage.

Is there a link on-line that someone can point me to about modifying the 10-pin USB cable? I'm not leery of trying it out as long as I have enough instructions to know what I'm doing.

I'll check out the manufacturer's site too and see if I can find any info there.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[Arclight]

Wait, let me get this straight: you have a cable coming from the FP with 2 connectors at the end, and you want to connect both of them; 1 to the MB and 1 to the card.

I don't think that's possible. I think I have a similar cable, but 1 connector is for AC'97 and the other is for HD audio. As far as I know you either use one or the other.



Forgot the search term I used last time, but they said you could lift a plastic finger and then the pin would come out, for what it's worth.

Could you give the brand and model of the motherboard and the souncard?

[Reece]

Problem with getting an extension cable is the wiring, although it maybe 1 for 1 some of them are shielded and you will induce noise, especially the mic in.
I have seen some bus extenders, not sure about PCIE, some are rigid some are flexible for mounting the card elsewhere in the box, that could be an option, though rather fiddly!! Do you know any mates that are good with electronics?

[frau kaleun]

Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM
Card: Asus Xonar DX

The audio FP header cable is as you described - one connector marked HD, the other AC'97. The original connection had the the HD connector plugged into the motherboard and the AC'97 connector free (which is how it is now). The card has an "optional" FP pinout that the documentation said you could connect up to the FP cable in order to use the FP headphone and mic jacks after installing the card and disabling the onboard audio.

When I first put in the card I just tried moving the HD connector from the board to the card but IIRC when I did that I got no sound at all, so I moved the HD connector back to the board and assumed that the FP pinout on the card was for the second connector on the cable and I would have to connect both of them if I wanted to use the FP jacks in conjunction with the sound card. Since I couldn't do that with the cable I had, I just plugged the HD connector back into the motherboard and left the card's FP pinout unconnected. I get fine sound from the speakers plugged directly into the card, but the FP jacks are useless.

This system is the first one I've had where I added a sound card that didn't come with it, so I'm learning all this stuff as I go - as per usual, since I can't resist the temptation to tinker - and maybe I'm completely misunderstanding how things *should* be hooked up, lol. I assumed that since there was also an FP pinout on the card, it meant I could use both connectors and run the cable to the card and the board whereas it could be I only have a choice of one or the other.

Anyway - if there is a way this should/could be hooked up that will give me the use of the front jacks, I'm all ears. But it's no biggie now, since I added newer speakers yesterday and found that there's a headphone jack on the control thingie which will be kept somewhere handy anyway, so as it turns out I do have a more convenient working option for headphone use. It's just that the "tinker gene" makes it almost impossible not to drive yourself crazy trying to make something work even after you don't absolutely need it work any more... just knowing that there's a feature that *might* work if I knew how to hook it up right is enough to keep me up nights, ya know?

[Reece]

I had a similar problem, I have a sound card now, but you have to go to control panel\Sound and Audio Devices\Audio and select the playback to the sound card rather than the motherboard, you can still leave the Sound Recording set to motherboard for input, I have the FP HD Audio plug on the X-fi Xtreme Creative sound card and use the motherboard AC97 mic and Aux inputs on the rear of the motherboard, works well.

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

It's just that the "tinker gene" makes it almost impossible not to drive yourself crazy trying to make something work even after you don't absolutely need it work any more... just knowing that there's a feature that *might* work if I knew how to hook it up right is enough to keep me up nights, ya know?

Absolutely.

Can't tell how often I've taken something perfectly functional apart for no aparent reason, other than "I might be able to make this work a little better".


I have a similar hookup as Reece: FP connector goes to my X-fi (HD audio connector), but I use my onboard for my headset (connected at rear panel). My FP cable isn't shielded, so I get static noise when I connect anything to FP. Makes it pretty much useless.

My sound comes through the speakers through the card, while Skype is set to use the onboard. When I want to game with my headset, I change the default device in Windows to the onboard, and then everything comes in over the headset. A program can usually only use 1 audio device; key is to make sure the options are set correctly.


Gonna see if I can find the manual for that board and card,; maybe it's a special case. Let you know if I find anything.

[Arclight]

Yeah, I'd just plug in the HD audio connector on the card, that should do it.

If you really want/need 2 seperate devices, you can leave the onboard enabled (if not, disable it in BIOS). Might get a conflict though; having both my card and onboard enabled caused a few BSODs with early Win7 beta.


Btw, some good documentation and nice software, especially for the soundcard. I didn't even know they made soundcards that require additional power though; mine just takes what it needs from the socket.

Copied from the manual. The first point seems critical:

• If you want to connect a high-definition front panel audio module to this connector, ensure that the front panel select item in the BIOS is set to [HD Audio]; if you want to connect an AC'97 front panel audio module to this connector; set the item to [AC97]. See page 2-27 for details.
• Make sure the audio device of Sound playback is Realtek High Definition Audio (the name may be different based on the OS). Go to Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sound Playback to configure the setting.

I think the first point just means you need to set which connector you used in the BIOS for proper functionality.

The second point is what was said about configuring a program or OS to use the proper device. It shouldn't be too difficult with just the card in there, but you'd definetly need to double-check if you have several devices (card+onboard for example, but even a single card can present multiple devices to the OS).

Whew, hope it helps.

[frau kaleun]

Well, I currently have the HD connector from the FP plugged into the card - it doesn't make any difference that I can tell. The FP 'phone jack doesn't work no matter where I put the connector. I'm wondering if the fact that the speakers have a built-in 'phone jack on the control is disabling all other possible headphone jacks.

Is what you quoted from the card manual, or the motherboard manual? I have the card manual on hand but I hadn't saved or printed out the board manual yet and for some reason the Asus website doesn't want to load right now. I was there a few hours ago with no problems so I don't know what's up with that.

The card manual says this:

6 Front panel audio header Connect one end of the front panel audio cable to the front panel audio header on the DX card, the other end to the chassis-mounted front panel audio I/O module on your motherboard.


There are only two "ends" of the FP audio cable that are readily accessible - the two connectors I've already mentioned, HD and AC'97, which are both essentially on the same end of the cable. That's why I thought it meant one plugged into the motherboard and one into the card - I hadn't even noticed that they were marked differently yet. The only other "end" of the cable is the one connected up inside the FP itself, and it seemed like that ought to stay where it was if the FP jacks were going to be connected up at all, but as I said I'm still in learning mode when it comes to this stuff.

Since I can't look at the motherboard manual right now I can't tell if it means a different pinout on the board entirely - maybe the board is supposed to stay connected to the FP, and a separate connection could run from the board to the card to let the card control the FP jacks? I can't see any other free connector on the board that would take the same type of connector or is marked as FP Audio. There are no other cables coming from the FP that have that kind of 9 pin connector and I can tell from where most of them are plugged into the board that they're for the power switch, LEDs, etc.

Anyway - I'll just park the speaker control thingie in a convenient place and use headphones from that.

The only options I have for Sound Playback in Control Panel are the sound card and "ATI HD Audio rear output" which has got to be the onboard audio from the motherboard, which I disabled when I installed the card per the card's manual. I will reboot though and go into Setup and have a looksee. Maybe there's something there I should've changed and didn't.

The mic I'm not worried about, that can stay plugged into the dedicated jack on the card's rear panel. I haven't tested it yet but I think it should work fine from there. I don't really use the mic very much so it's no biggie unless if I ever get around to installing the voice recognition mod so I can scream commands at the crew and it doesn't work, I'll have to mess with it then.

Thanks again for taking time to help me puzzle this out. Just wait til I get tired of this system! The next time, I *swear* I'm gonna build one entirely from scratch. Won't that be fun? I'm guessing it will go something like this:

[Reece]

Also in XP Control Panel I have an Icon called Audio Console (Creative software), here I can also select the output device and under the tab Headphone Detection you can select Headphone settings and Automatically mute speakers.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Reece

Also in XP Control Panel I have an Icon called Audio Console (Creative software), here I can also select the output device and under the tab Headphone Detection you can select Headphone settings and Automatically mute speakers.

Is that something that got added to Control Panel when you installed the sound card? I don't have it but the Xonar DX Audio Center shows up there, that came with my sound card install. There may be something I can do from there - I've only played with it a little and haven't even begun to look at the documentation on it.