P4c800E/Front Panel Audio Question

[Jeff]

Hi,

I have the P4C800-E and I also have a case with a microphone imput with two
wired leads. The jumper panel on the Motherboard, If I connect this to the
MIC pins, is that it, or do I have to remove the jumper pins that are there.
the manual says only remove these if you're connecting an intel front panel
cable.

Tia,

jeff

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I have the P4C800-E and I also have a case with a microphone imput with two
wired leads. The jumper panel on the Motherboard, If I connect this to the
MIC pins, is that it, or do I have to remove the jumper pins that are there.
the manual says only remove these if you're connecting an intel front panel
cable.

Tia,

jeff

If the computer front panel jack for the microphone only has two
wires, connect them to "MIC" and "GND" on the FPAUDIO header of
the motherboard. But typically, microphones have 1/8" stereo
plugs, and those have three contacts. The contact at the very
tip is "MIC", the middle contact is "MIC_PWR" (or alternately
named "MIC_BIAS"), and the other contact is "GND". It would be
normal, as a result, for the microphone jack to have three wires.
If you can dig up those three wires, then connect them to
like-named signals on the FPAUDIO header.

As for the jumper plugs, they have to do with the Lineout
audio signals. You don't and should not touch them, if all
you are doing is hooking up the microphone.

The original background info was here, and has been removed
by Intel, in favour of their new Azalia Audio.

(original doc, now gone)
http://www.formfactors.org/developer/fpio_design_guideline.pdf

(replacement, with emphasis on Azalia - see page 21)
http://www.formfactors.org/developer\specs\A2928604.pdf

(Download this one. First two pages are the same as the orig.)
http://www.minmaw.com/FPIO_Design_Guideline_final v10.pdf

Note: Make no connection to the +5VA pin. It is raw power
and would severely damage the microphone or speakers, if
it was connected. I think it might have been intended for
powering a headphone amplifier, which nobody implements.
Most audio chips already have a 32 ohm driver for headphones,
so it isn't needed as a rule.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Jeff]

If the computer front panel jack for the microphone only has two
wires, connect them to "MIC" and "GND" on the FPAUDIO header of
the motherboard. But typically, microphones have 1/8" stereo
plugs, and those have three contacts. The contact at the very
tip is "MIC", the middle contact is "MIC_PWR" (or alternately
named "MIC_BIAS"), and the other contact is "GND". It would be
normal, as a result, for the microphone jack to have three wires.
If you can dig up those three wires, then connect them to
like-named signals on the FPAUDIO header.

As for the jumper plugs, they have to do with the Lineout
audio signals. You don't and should not touch them, if all
you are doing is hooking up the microphone.

The original background info was here, and has been removed
by Intel, in favour of their new Azalia Audio.

(original doc, now gone)
http://www.formfactors.org/developer/fpio_design_guideline.pdf

(replacement, with emphasis on Azalia - see page 21)
http://www.formfactors.org/developer\specs\A2928604.pdf

(Download this one. First two pages are the same as the orig.)
http://www.minmaw.com/FPIO_Design_Guideline_final v10.pdf

Note: Make no connection to the +5VA pin. It is raw power
and would severely damage the microphone or speakers, if
it was connected. I think it might have been intended for
powering a headphone amplifier, which nobody implements.
Most audio chips already have a 32 ohm driver for headphones,
so it isn't needed as a rule.

HTH,
Paul

THANK YOU PAUl.

Just two other things, does this cancel the mic input on the back Panel?

Also. if I remove the jumper caps on the pinouts on teh MB and onnect the
headphone wires from the front panel to them, can i then have a situation
where connecting a headphone would then "kill" the sound coming from the
speakers connected to line out from the back plate?

TIA

jeff

 

[Paul]

THANK YOU PAUl.

Just two other things, does this cancel the mic input on the back Panel?

Also. if I remove the jumper caps on the pinouts on teh MB and onnect the
headphone wires from the front panel to them, can i then have a situation
where connecting a headphone would then "kill" the sound coming from the
speakers connected to line out from the back plate?

TIA

jeff

Your mixer control panel for the sound system, should offer
a MIC1 and a MIC2 setting. MIC2 would be the microphone connected
to the FP_AUDIO header.

Front panel headphones are a little more complicated.

If the headphone jack on the front of the computer has
three wires, it is an ordinary non-interrupting style
jack. If you remove the two jumper caps, and connect the
three wires, you lose use of Lineout on the back of the
computer.

If you can find a way to do the same job as the two jumpers
(i.e. keep shorting those two pairs of pins, like the jumper
caps would), and connect the three wires to their intended
connections, you could have front panel audio and Lineout
at the same. There would be no interruption, but you'll get
a burst of noise or a "pop" from the speakers when plugging
or unplugging.

If the computer case has five wires for the headphones, then
the wiring supports the "interrupting" option. When the five
wires are connected, plugging in headphones on the front,
cuts off speakers on the back (Lineout). Again, if you can
find a way to do the same job as the jumper caps (i.e. short
the pairs of pins the way the jumper caps would), then there
won't be an interrupting function, both outputs work at
the same time, and you might get clicks and pops when plugging
in.

To make a cable that is both a jumper plug and a contact
for wiring to the front panel (making a non-interrupting
headphone setup):

http://frontx.com/order_c.html (the page I found these...)
http://frontx.com/cpx075_8.html (jumper plugs - buy 2)
http://frontx.com/cpx076.html (enough for 5 jumpers in one pkg)
http://frontx.com/cpx076_2.html (male contact - one pkg enough)

Make two of these cable assemblies. One for left and one for
right channel headphone. The 075_8 end fits onto FP_AUDIO,
and the 076_2 connects to the headphone wiring on the front
of the case.

Plastic Female Male
Body Pins Pin
075_8 076 076_2
-----
X | XXXXX---|
X | XXXXX---|-----------------xxxxx
----- ^
|
+--- Crimp two wires into this pin, so all
three pins are shorted together. I.e
/ like this.
/
|
V
------- ----------------
| | | |
| | | |
X X x
X X x
X X x
X X x
X X x

The body of the male pin will need to be covered with black
electrical tape, as Frontx doesn't seem to sell the plastic
cover for the single male pin. The two female pins, after the
wires have been crimped in place, slide into the 075_8 two
position jumper body, and will click when the little tab on
each pin is in place. If, where the wire is crimped, is too
fat, the pin will not fit properly into the plastic body.
Since you have extra pins, you'll need to experiment a bit,
to get it right.

You also need a little wire. The jumper plugs I have sitting
in front of me, specify #22 to #28 gauge stranded wire, as
fitting into the crimp pins. Radio Shack 278-1224 is pretty
close to being the right kind of wire - as the number goes up,
the wire gets smaller, so #22 is the largest diameter and
#28 is the smallest. With the #22 gauge, you might have a
little trouble fitting two wires into one of the female
pin bodies. Maybe two #26 gauge wires would fit. If you
take a sample of the female pin to Radio Shack, maybe they
can suggest a wire likely to fit the pin. Or, if you have
a real electronics parts store in your town, they may be
able to supply all the parts needed themselves. I have only
one store in my city that can handle such an order.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Jeff]

Your mixer control panel for the sound system, should offer
a MIC1 and a MIC2 setting. MIC2 would be the microphone connected
to the FP_AUDIO header.

Front panel headphones are a little more complicated.

If the headphone jack on the front of the computer has
three wires, it is an ordinary non-interrupting style
jack. If you remove the two jumper caps, and connect the
three wires, you lose use of Lineout on the back of the
computer.

If you can find a way to do the same job as the two jumpers
(i.e. keep shorting those two pairs of pins, like the jumper
caps would), and connect the three wires to their intended
connections, you could have front panel audio and Lineout
at the same. There would be no interruption, but you'll get
a burst of noise or a "pop" from the speakers when plugging
or unplugging.

If the computer case has five wires for the headphones, then
the wiring supports the "interrupting" option. When the five
wires are connected, plugging in headphones on the front,
cuts off speakers on the back (Lineout). Again, if you can
find a way to do the same job as the jumper caps (i.e. short
the pairs of pins the way the jumper caps would), then there
won't be an interrupting function, both outputs work at
the same time, and you might get clicks and pops when plugging
in.

To make a cable that is both a jumper plug and a contact
for wiring to the front panel (making a non-interrupting
headphone setup):

http://frontx.com/order_c.html (the page I found these...)
http://frontx.com/cpx075_8.html (jumper plugs - buy 2)
http://frontx.com/cpx076.html (enough for 5 jumpers in one pkg)
http://frontx.com/cpx076_2.html (male contact - one pkg enough)

Make two of these cable assemblies. One for left and one for
right channel headphone. The 075_8 end fits onto FP_AUDIO,
and the 076_2 connects to the headphone wiring on the front
of the case.

Plastic Female Male
Body Pins Pin
075_8 076 076_2
-----
X | XXXXX---|
X | XXXXX---|-----------------xxxxx
----- ^
|
+--- Crimp two wires into this pin, so all
three pins are shorted together. I.e
/ like this.
/
|
V
------- ----------------
| | | |
| | | |
X X x
X X x
X X x
X X x
X X x

The body of the male pin will need to be covered with black
electrical tape, as Frontx doesn't seem to sell the plastic
cover for the single male pin. The two female pins, after the
wires have been crimped in place, slide into the 075_8 two
position jumper body, and will click when the little tab on
each pin is in place. If, where the wire is crimped, is too
fat, the pin will not fit properly into the plastic body.
Since you have extra pins, you'll need to experiment a bit,
to get it right.

You also need a little wire. The jumper plugs I have sitting
in front of me, specify #22 to #28 gauge stranded wire, as
fitting into the crimp pins. Radio Shack 278-1224 is pretty
close to being the right kind of wire - as the number goes up,
the wire gets smaller, so #22 is the largest diameter and
#28 is the smallest. With the #22 gauge, you might have a
little trouble fitting two wires into one of the female
pin bodies. Maybe two #26 gauge wires would fit. If you
take a sample of the female pin to Radio Shack, maybe they
can suggest a wire likely to fit the pin. Or, if you have
a real electronics parts store in your town, they may be
able to supply all the parts needed themselves. I have only
one store in my city that can handle such an order.

HTH,
Paul

Paul,

I also havd a 3.5 inch unit combo Multi memory card with headphone jack and
mic jack, with a moled ten pin jack with one jack mising, will do this do
the job to making the front panel accessible the way in which you speak the
way as front x does?

Also, the mixing program which shows mic 1 and mic 2, is that in sound
properies control panel (windows mixer?)

TIA,

jeff

 

[Paul]

I also havd a 3.5 inch unit combo Multi memory card with headphone jack and
mic jack, with a moled ten pin jack with one jack mising, will do this do
the job to making the front panel accessible the way in which you speak the
way as front x does?

Also, the mixing program which shows mic 1 and mic 2, is that in sound
properies control panel (windows mixer?)

TIA,

jeff

If the instructions with the ten pin plug say it is an Intel
compatible interface, then just remove the jumper plugs on FPAUDIO
and plug it in. To be on the safe side, if the instructions
give a pinout for the connector, compare it to the motherboard
manual. The pins in the ten pin connector may be removable,
in case the wires need to be repositioned. (Pressing the tip of
an Xacto hobby knife, against an exposed metal tab, should
allow a wire and pin to slide out without too much violence.)

As for the microphone control, take a look at the mixer panel.
In the manual, I see a grey dot next to the microphone slider,
and maybe a dialog box will pop up if you click on the dot.
The setting doesn't seem to be in the Preferences thing, so
that is the only other place I can see to access it.

As some background info, there is a picture of the organization
of the AD1985 codec here. As to whether the SoundMax software
allows you to harness everything in there, that is another
question.

http://www.analog.com/UploadedFiles/Data_Sheets/1198969AD1985_a.pdf

HTH,
Paul

 

[Jeff]

If the instructions with the ten pin plug say it is an Intel
compatible interface, then just remove the jumper plugs on FPAUDIO
and plug it in. To be on the safe side, if the instructions
give a pinout for the connector, compare it to the motherboard
manual. The pins in the ten pin connector may be removable,
in case the wires need to be repositioned. (Pressing the tip of
an Xacto hobby knife, against an exposed metal tab, should
allow a wire and pin to slide out without too much violence.)

As for the microphone control, take a look at the mixer panel.
In the manual, I see a grey dot next to the microphone slider,
and maybe a dialog box will pop up if you click on the dot.
The setting doesn't seem to be in the Preferences thing, so
that is the only other place I can see to access it.

As some background info, there is a picture of the organization
of the AD1985 codec here. As to whether the SoundMax software
allows you to harness everything in there, that is another
question.

http://www.analog.com/UploadedFiles/Data_Sheets/1198969AD1985_a.pdf

HTH,
Paul

Paul,

This front pnale unit made by www.in-win.com (IWI530-B) which is an
internal 10 in one card reader with headphone and line out has a connector
(that fits onto the asus MB) but gives no indicator whether it's "intel".
The plug has a dead pin to match the missing one on the MB, but it also has
a red wire which connects to the +5 pin on the MB pinout. Should +5 be sent
to this unit or it doesn't matter.

Thanks again,

Jeff

 

[Paul]

Paul,

This front pnale unit made by www.in-win.com (IWI530-B) which is an
internal 10 in one card reader with headphone and line out has a connector
(that fits onto the asus MB) but gives no indicator whether it's "intel".
The plug has a dead pin to match the missing one on the MB, but it also has
a red wire which connects to the +5 pin on the MB pinout. Should +5 be sent
to this unit or it doesn't matter.

Thanks again,

Jeff

I tried the Inwin web site, but it is a big zero when it comes to
product information. No manual.

The product is listed on the Newegg site, and the people who filed
reviews, didn't mention any problems with respect to connecting
it. That is pretty thin info to go on, but I cannot find anything
else to help you with. This picture:

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/20-162-208-07.JPG

shows the back of the unit, and I see three cables. Maybe one is
Firewire, one is USB, one is audio ?

I cannot imagine a Taiwanese company wasting an extra wire when it
is not needed, so they must be doing something with the +5VA. The
Firewire and USB cables already have power, so about the only thing
I can think of, is Inwin has a headphone amplifier on the circuit
board. Does the product documentation have specs, as if there is
an amplifier on the headphone port ? If I could look at the inside
of the unit, I could sorta guess at it.

I looked around the web a bit, hoping that the Inwin product
was a rebrand of someone else's product, or vise versa, in the
hope that I could find a decent manual. But, so far, I haven't
found a match.

You could analyse the thing with a multimeter. When there are no
plugs pushed into the audio jacks, the pins corresponding to
where the two jumper plugs go, will be shorted just like a
jumper plug would short the pins. So, sticking the two leads
of a meter into the two holes of the pins that have the jumper
on them, should read zero ohms. To debug the rest of it, this
is what pins on the 2x5 cable, should join to the two jacks
on the card reader - plugging a male to male 1/8" stereo cable
into the jack, gives access to the Tip, Ring, and Sleeve
contacts:

Microphone_jack Headphone_jack
Tip MIC Left (Line_Out_L)
Ring MIC_BIAS Right (Line_Out_R)
Sleeve GND GND

To figure out what is happening to +5VA, you'll need to look
inside the unit.

Don't you just love Taiwanese stuff

HTH,
Paul

 

[Jeff]

You could analyse the thing with a multimeter. When there are no
plugs pushed into the audio jacks, the pins corresponding to
where the two jumper plugs go, will be shorted just like a
jumper plug would short the pins. So, sticking the two leads
of a meter into the two holes of the pins that have the jumper
on them, should read zero ohms. To debug the rest of it, this
is what pins on the 2x5 cable, should join to the two jacks
on the card reader - plugging a male to male 1/8" stereo cable
into the jack, gives access to the Tip, Ring, and Sleeve
contacts:

Microphone_jack Headphone_jack
Tip MIC Left (Line_Out_L)
Ring MIC_BIAS Right (Line_Out_R)
Sleeve GND GND

To figure out what is happening to +5VA, you'll need to look
inside the unit.

Don't you just love Taiwanese stuff

HTH,
Paul

Paul,

Any chance that connecting it as is can fry the MB or do damage?

I'll try to crank open the unit and pry inside.
But do internal front bay units with Audio out and mic connectors include
amplification?

And yes,. that third cable you speak of is audio.

jeff

 

[Jeff]

Paul,

I made a test, I too kthe IWI530B into a gigbyte built syestem and connected
the Audio header to the MB.

With the speaker connectors still mounted to the MB, I connected headphones
with built in vlume control to the front panel Audio in connector, it
definitely muted the PC speakers but the volume was very, very low with
noticeable static, hum and noise.

Now, i must mention too, I did not connect the USB power for the Unit, just
the audio connector with the +5 coming from the MB.

Did I need to connect USB power in addition to connecting the audio header?

but at least i know now that Rear audio is muted when front connector is
made.

jeff

 

[Jeff]

Paul,

Follow-up

the headphones, (big ones with 1/8 inch jack connected to the audio out rear
pnael is dim too....Must be the headphones, will try another pair.

Still know though the front connection mutes the back..Still trying to
figure out revelance of +5 or danger of using it.

jeff

 

[Paul]

Paul,

I made a test, I too kthe IWI530B into a gigbyte built syestem and connected
the Audio header to the MB.

With the speaker connectors still mounted to the MB, I connected headphones
with built in vlume control to the front panel Audio in connector, it
definitely muted the PC speakers but the volume was very, very low with
noticeable static, hum and noise.

Now, i must mention too, I did not connect the USB power for the Unit, just
the audio connector with the +5 coming from the MB.

Did I need to connect USB power in addition to connecting the audio header?

but at least i know now that Rear audio is muted when front connector is
made.

jeff

At least the P4C800-E has an Intel header. Does the Gigabyte
documentation say their header is Intel compatible ? There
are different pinouts out there, and even early Asus boards
were not all Intel compatible.

The USB and audio should be independent of one another. To use
the audio jacks, only the audio cable should be needed. That is
because, the +5VA signal on the audio cable, would be filtered
and have reduced noise. The power signals on the two other data
cables would not be filtered for audio applications.

This is not really a job for guesswork. If this was my hardware
purchase, I would be tearing it apart to find out exactly
what is going on. For example, I have a couple of Antec
computer cases, and I got out a meter and checked the names on
the wires, versus the definition of the pinout documented
on many web sites. My two Antec cases both have wiring errors,
and as a consequence, I no longer connect front panel computer
case stuff to the motherboard, because the computer case
manufacturers are a bunch of idiots.

I don't expect you'll get an answer, but perhaps you could
contact Inwin and get the pinout for the cables. Then, you
can compare the stated pinout against what is on your
motherboard. Tearing the gear apart only works, if everything
you need to get at, is visible, so there are limits to how
much good reverse engineering you can do as a consumer.

Until you get an answer from Inwin tech support, I would leave
the audio disconnected, until you get a definitive answer.

HTH,
Paul