Using front panel audio ports disable rear audio ports?

[Phamine]

I connected the front panel audio ports the the front panel audio connector on my mother board. However, upon doing so my rear ports stopped working. Is this common when you connect front audio ports?

Its for a Shuttle AB60R intel motherboard btw.

 

[MADMAX23]

Read your motherboard manual, you'll have to remove or change the position of the Audio jumper/s

 

[Peter]

Yes, this is normal on recent mainboards. If your front case connectors do that properly (very few do), some mainboards loop the signal back into the rear plugs when the front ones aren't in use.

 

[Phamine]

Originally posted by: Peter
Yes, this is normal on recent mainboards. If your front case connectors do that properly (very few do), some mainboards loop the signal back into the rear plugs when the front ones aren't in use.

Looks like this is the case for me

 

[Valkerie]

some 2004/2005 motherboards are so cheap that they will not offer default jumper settings for configuring new case wires, you have to guess 'n check, what the hell is up with this? damn standard implementations

 

[Varun]

I have an NF7-S and was hoping that I could connect my front audio and mic to use for a headset, however, when you do that (as you found out) you get no sound from the rear ports. There is a jumper on my board and if removed to connect the front ports the rear ports get no signal. It's a VERY poor design and I am a bit shocked that someone would come up with such a poor implementation. I don't think it would take a genius to realise that people want the front connectors for headphones and the rear ports for speakers.

One workaround is to change your front audio port to a normally closed jack (most are normally open) and then when you plug in your headphones the speakers won't work but when you unplug the headphones they will come back on.

I guess you could also get a y spliter for the rear port and hook one side of it up to your front panel connectors as well.

Honestly I can't think of any reason why they would design it like that but there you go.

 

[Peter]

This "poor" implementation is exactly the loopback capable design I was speaking of; the jumpers are closing the circuit to the rear jacks when no front jacks are connected at all. This requires BETTER front jacks that loop the signal back through the "return" wire when the jack is unused.

Bottom line: Stop complaining about the mainboard - this is the best approach there is. It's your case front connectors where an important feature is missing.

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Peter
This "poor" implementation is exactly the loopback capable design I was speaking of; the jumpers are closing the circuit to the rear jacks when no front jacks are connected at all. This requires BETTER front jacks that loop the signal back through the "return" wire when the jack is unused.

Bottom line: Stop complaining about the mainboard - this is the best approach there is. It's your case front connectors where an important feature is missing.

Well I disagree with you completely. Obviously the cases are not coming with normally closed headphone jacks, so yes the case makers (including Antec who sells my case) should be using normally closed jacks to hide a poor design by the motherboard makers.

Do you not think it would be better to have a splitter that would allow signal to be sent to the front ports and leave the rear ports alone? Even if say, the front out ports were disabled I would be fine with it, and have my speakers plugged into the rear out, however when the loopback is disabled none of the rear ports work.

Even if they had a jumper to allow you to pick between having the front ports a clone of the rear and the current system it would be better than "the best approach there is"

As a computer engineer myself it's disgusting to know how little effort and hardware it would take to have a better system than they use now.