CD-ROM Audio Cable

[psionkey]

I have a Epox 8rda+ and a Samsung SM348 CDRW/DVD drive.

Is it necessary to for me to connect the CD-audio cable to the motherboard at all? Everything (Audio CD's) seems to work fine without it under windows XP, except I can't control the CD volume.

The reason I ask is because when I do connect it, there's annoying noise coming out of my speakers when the drive is spinning (very noticeable noise).

 

[Lord Evermore]

WindowsXP transfers audio from CDs digitally using the IDE bus. The analog audio cable is unneeded in that case. Previous versions (and other OSes may also) used the analog cable to transfer the sound directly to the sound card. Obviously digital audio extraction is better.

Don't know why you can't adjust the sound volume, unless the volume control panel is set too low to begin with or something, for the CD-input.

The annoying noise may be due to electrical interference. Either a crappy cable, or the drive isn't well shielded.