Basic audio cable/DVD/CDRW question that confuses me.

FluxCap

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2002
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I have built many PCs since last year and I realized I don't know something so basic that I am almost embarassed to admit, but here goes.

I have no idea what the audio cable is for that hooks up to the motherboard from the rom drive. My motherboard is a P4P800 Deluxe and I just now installed my first DVD drive on my main PC. I can hear the movie out of my main speakers just fine, listen to music out of my speakers from my CDRW drive just fine, but the headphones don't work.

Do I have the cable messed up if I can't listen out of the headphone jack on the front of the drives? Does the cable do anything if you have onboard sound? I am confused.
 

johnjkr1

Platinum Member
Jan 10, 2003
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Basically, the cable is for analog music. If you have your cdrom/dvd rom set to extract and play music digitally, the cable does nothing. Where are you plugging your headphone into?
 

FluxCap

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2002
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Originally posted by: johnjkr1
Basically, the cable is for analog music. If you have your cdrom/dvd rom set to extract and play music digitally, the cable does nothing. Where are you plugging your headphone into?


I just read that in the book, so not researching was my fault. But to answer your question I was trying to plug the headphones into the front of the DVD rom while the DVD was playing and the sound was playing out of my speakers. So, in essence I don't even need the audio cable if I stick with digital? If so, where is the best place to listen with digital headphones because it looks like the only way to listen from the back of my PC is to remove the speaker hookup and replace it with a headphone hookup? (not really practical)