Swapping soundcards - different wires?

[SnipaMasta]

Hi all,
I dought a Dell computer some while back, and the soundcard has just finally got on my nerves. It doesn't play music properly (this is the MODEL, not the individual hardware) and I cannot get my Medusa 5.1 headphones to work on it, while at the same time using my 5.1 speakers.

The soundcard in question is the Sound Blaster X-Fi, I'm not sure what model exactly, but I think it's meant to support 7.1 sound, too. I'm trying to swap it for my Dolby Digital 5.1 soundcard in my old computer, but I've noticed the plugs are different (that connect to the motherboard). The one in my Dell computer (Soundblaster X-Fi) is bigger than the one in my old computer. I'm not sure about the connection to the motherboard though, I honestly can't follow the wire without extreme difficulty.

Does anyone know WHY this cable is bigger, and if it's possible to swap it around with the one on my old computer? If it's required I can probably post pictures of both...

 

[SnipaMasta]

Well, I don't need help sorting out the soundcard and the problems I'm having with it - I've tried tweaking as much as I can and I'm fed up with it. I'm not sure of specific models, but I'll get a picture of the wires later.

Note:This is not an individual hardware problem. I recently had to have the computer replaced because of problems I was having, and the problems existed before.

 

[SnipaMasta]

Ok then.

When playing at 100% volume, music is really distorted. It's noticable most with louder songs where the loud parts of the song have really noticable distortion. My brother found that if you turn the volume setting down to 50% then the sound becomes undistorted when playing just as loud. However, doing this essentially turns off the Centre speaker, and when playing games there's certian "blind spots" where you hear someone run past, then their footsteps dissapear, then you hear them again.

I'm really not very good at explaining this, but I hope that was understandable...

 

[SnipaMasta]

I'll give it a go now, but for now:

Soudblaster X-Fi:

And then that goes into the front hub on the computer (which has a microphone and a headphone socket). Bit difficult to get to, actually:

Old sound card:

Plugs into the back of the DVD Drive (sorry about the focus on this one):

Are the plugs that go into the Cd drive (or the front hub, on my new PC) usually the same? Or is that the plugs you need pictures of?

 

[SnipaMasta]

Ok, so the only thing I stand to lose is the front ports if I swap them over?


Edit:
Went ahead and swapped them. Got some better drivers for it (the versions I had were on a scratched up CD and were causing massive system problems) and it works fine. Thanks for the help Phil.