Dumb question but??

Dingo · 3 Apr 2007 at 23:50

Hi guys,

have always used onboard sound previously but invested in a sound card recently but can't get external speakers to work.

Question is this......do I have to connect soundcard to DVD\CD via cable or, by disabling onboard, should the soundcard (pci) be able to be used without a connection to the DVD\CD drive.......any help appreciated.

killer_uk · 3 Apr 2007 at 23:53

If I understand you correctly, you are asking if you need a cable running from your optical drives to your sound card?

If this is what you mean, no you don't. I believe this was only needed on older operating systems.

"Many newer systems do away with the audio cable altogether. Recent versions of Windows support audio-CD playback using digital audio extraction, which lets the PC read digital data directly from the drive and perform the necessary digital-to-analog conversion."

mishima · 3 Apr 2007 at 23:53

It should work without any cabling to the optical drive, are you trying to run music from a CD? You should be fine without a cable, I haven't had to with mine.

Dingo · 4 Apr 2007 at 02:18

Thanks for the reply's guys.

I didn't think I did need to use the cable but, having connected these speakers to a system I was running a year ago that had a soundcard connected to the optical drive they worked, now on a new system without a cable connection but just the sound card in the pci slot, they don't.

Windows doesn't pick up the speakers as new hardware so I can't configure them. Have tried in control panel.sounds and audio devices but nothing appears, so can only play back music from headphones, which do get recognised by windows??

RobH · 4 Apr 2007 at 02:43

Unless their USB speakers, which I am assuming they are not then windows doesn't 'detect' speakers. You may have an application that was part of the soundcard drivers that senses when you plug something into the audio jack but the operating system isn't aware of the speaker hardware, all it knows about is the output device (soundcard).

Did you check to see if the primary sound device in windows is your soundcard and not the onboard? I have windows working happily with 4 sound devices (2 soundcards + webcam + USB Headset), you just need to make sure that the right one is configured for the right application. If you set the default in control panel then all applications should use it by default unless you manually override the default in the application such as iTunes or WMP.

It might sound silly but did you power the speakers up before plugging them in if they are amplified speakers?

schumi84 · 4 Apr 2007 at 11:31

Also make sure that the onboard audio is disabled in the BIOS as i had a problem where i flashed the BIOS, which enabled the onboard audio so i had no sound from my PCI soundcard.

Dingo · 7 Apr 2007 at 00:49

RobH said:
It might sound silly but did you power the speakers up before plugging them in if they are amplified speakers?

Done it both ways and still it refused to play.

Re-installed sound card drivers and eventually got up the speaker setup icon, but trying several times, with no success, to get any sound out!!

When I revert back to headphones no problem but the damn speakers refuse to give me sound. have tried them in a seperate pc with soundcard but stil no joy.

They are the logitech Z560's by the way, and I just want to hear that 400W of musical fineness!!....anyone else have any other ideas??