Question about a new sound card

[RocketGuy3]

I have a Dell Inspiron 530 with integrated 7.1 audio, and I just bought a new sound card. This new card doesn't include an extra front panel for I/O (even if it did, I would have no available slot to use it).

What I'm wondering is will the headphone and mic-in jacks that are integrated into my motherboard on the front of the PC still work properly after I install this card? I'm guessing I will need to uninstall the drivers for the on-board audio before I can properly install this new card, and I doubt the card will be able to support those jacks, so in all likelihood, this is a stupid question that I already know the answer to... but I hope I'm wrong.

Can I keep the audio drivers that I currently have? Or can this new card support the jacks on the front of my PC?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[corkyg]

Your sound card should have on board headers for those ports. I don't any on this card. You may just have to run the rear ports to your front ones.

 

[RocketGuy3]

Are you talking about using one of these auxiliary ports?

http://c1.neweggimages.com/New...mage/29-127-002-03.jpg

 

[MrColin]

I'm guessing no for the headphone jack on the case, since there is no internal connector on the card. For the microphone yes, I think you can connect them to the auxiliary input on the card. In my experience with windows it is best to disable the on board audio in the BIOS after uninstalling the drivers. In Linux its not a big deal to have them both going. Not sure why you might need two audio devices in Linux, but thats how it is.

 

[RocketGuy3]

What kind of cable would I need in order to make that connection, assuming I can? Even if there's a cable already on the board connecting that mic jack, I doubt that it will reach the PCI slot for the sound card.

 

[MrColin]

On the card it looks like the same type of input that connects to a cd-rom, its not mentioned in the manual, I dnot know what your front panel jack has or if that would even work. I dont see that it has a headphone jack anywhre either. It looks like the ideal setup would be to run spdif connection to a reciever(w/ headphone jack), and the mic from the card. Looks like a sweet card, I'd really like to see Creative get knocked off the throne, they aren't worthy.

 

[RocketGuy3]

Yeah, not many of the Creative cards really seemed to offer what I wanted at any reasonable price. Also, one of the main things that kept me away from the cheaper Turtle Beach or Creative cards with optical I/O is that there still seems to be a lot of Vista compatibility issues with them.

Anyways, thanks for the help. I guess I'll find out what I'll need to do when this card comes in the mail, and I open up my PC.