Front audio panel prob

I bought a case with a front panel audio connectors and connected those individual cables from this to my motherboard (Asus P5VD1-X). There were four cables, and I connected L to Line Out L(eft), R to Line Out R(ight), Mic to Mic2 and G to AGND.


After wiring them together the sound works fine from these connectors, but my rear connectors no longer work when I attach my two desktop speakers to the lineout socket at the back. I think somewhere the sound is being cut to the rear motherboard sound connections due to my wiring - is this the case?

That’s exactly what’s happening. You’ll find two more connectors on the motherboard called L_BLINE OUT and R_BLINE OUT or something similar. When the front panel connectors aren’t in use, a jumper ensures the rear connectors are enabled; if these jumpers are removed and the two BLINE connectors aren’t hooked up to anything then the front connector comes online and the rear are disabled.

Sadly, it appears your case doesn’t have the extra cables required to enable you to use the rear connectors at the same time as your front speakers. There is, however, a workaround you can try. Leave the front lineout connectors unconnected. This means that your speakers will work using the rear connection, which ensures the speaker cables don’t get in the way. Most modern speaker sets have headphone sockets, so use these if necessary.

You’ll find that even if both front and rear connectors worked, plugging in the headphones to the front connector wouldn’t cut the output to the speakers anyway. If you’d like to plug in a microphone occasionally then hook up the Mic and G cables to transfer the input from the back to the front, ensuring that you get some advantage from your front panel.