Difference between AC'97 and HD audio?

[marcosscriven]

Hi

My new Antec P180 seems to be slightly different to my old one. Two things I noticed is that it has case fan speed switched on the back (alothough the front would have been better), and now it has two different audio header plugs on the one cable, labled AC'97 and HD.

Looking in my new mobo, it says to disable HD audio, all you need to do is turn off auto front-panel plugin detection. Is that the only diff?

For the moment, I've used the HD connector, as the mobo manual says that is the default, and that incorrect connections in AC'97 mode can cause damage (though I'm not sure how).

 

[hohum]

The only difference regarding the front panel connector is jack sensing. The HD connector supports it, the AC97 connector doesn't. If you only had the option of using an AC97 connector (a lot of Lian-Li cases still seem to only have this type) then you would need to turn off jack sensing in the control panel for your onboard audio, otherwise the front ports would not work.

So to sum it up, the HD connector you used is the best choice.