Switching between Headset and Speakers

Bramill · 3 Jan 2014 at 23:15

Hi guys,

I have a

Asus Xonar D2X sound card,
Sennheiser PC 360 heahphones,
AE Aego 2.1 speakers

What I need to be able to do is switch between the two without having to go to the back of my pc and switch the cables round. The main reason for this is that I have my TV plugged into my pc and I use it for watching films from my bed so the headphones won't reach.

The sound card has somehow removed my motherboards realtech audio as a playback option, so I can't just plug my speakers into the motherboard at the minute, which I would be happy to do. However I'd like to have everything plugged into the sound card if possible.

Anyone here know how to solve this?

Bramill · 4 Jan 2014 at 13:27

Thank you for the suggestions guys. I see there is a simple elegant solution to using the sound card for both.

I'll have to go down the route of using my motherboards on-board sound for the TV. The problem I have is my realtek audio device has disappeared from my devices and I've tried reinstalling the driver.

Can anyone offer any guidance?

Bramill · 4 Jan 2014 at 13:51

Marsman said:
Has it been disabled in the BIOS?

I will check this as soon as I am able to tear myself away from Battlefield 4 =)

Bramill · 4 Jan 2014 at 14:54

Marsman said:
Has it been disabled in the BIOS?

I have enabled the onboard audio in the bios and it now shows in my devices, however when I when I select it as the default playback device, the sound continues to come through the headphones. I guess the Asus Xonar D2X Audio Center is overriding windows.

Any ideas how I can switch between onboard and my sound card for sound output?

Bramill · 4 Jan 2014 at 18:12

I've managed to set my motherboard as the default audio output for vlc, which was my main concern. However I don't know that it's possible to do this for firefox or any other web browser for when I'm watching iplayer

Bramill · 4 Jan 2014 at 19:27

inogen said:
So you can't change the output device in audio properties? (or you can but if makes no difference?)

I use nircmd to switch between headphones and speakers. Easy to set up and you can macro it to keyboard shortcuts. Which is far more convenient than the system tray toggle during a game.

Yeah when I right click on the speaker icon at the bottom right tray in windows 7 and choose playback devices, changing the default doesn't make the sound come through the speakers but I do lose the ability to control the volume until I switch it back.