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Help with Xonar DX: Front Panel not working

L

lh0628

n00b
Joined
Nov 2, 2009
Messages
10
Hi all,

I recently bought a Xonar DX, had it installed and everything is great except that the front panel audios (Mic and headphone) don't work. I plugged the HD Audio connector coming from the front panel into the F_audio plug on the DX card, which should give me front panel audio, but it doesn't.

I've also tried to connect the HD Audio connector to the F_Audio plug on the mother board and that doesn't work either.

Could someone tell me what I'm doing wrong here?

Thank you.
 
Firstly, front panel audio is notoriously flaky.

I'm not intimately familiar with your specific product, but is the connector reversible? Do you have a multimeter you could use for continuity testing?
 
What do you mean by reversible? I do have a multimeter, how should I use it to test?

Thank you.
 
Murphy's law: if there are two ways to attach a connector, and one of them will seriously screw things up, it will inevitably be connected in that configuration. Are the pins such that if you unplug it and turn it 180 degrees, it can be connected?

To cont test, you generally put your multimeter in ohmmeter mode as if you were going to measure resistance (labeled with an R or Ω). Put the probe on either side of something you believe to be connected, and it should read 0Ω if so. You could verify the connection by leaving the connector slightly loose, placing one end on each pin, and placing the other end on the solder points at the other end of the cable. This won't verify that the daughter PCB itself has a good circuit, but it will tell you whether the signal should be being transmitted successfully.
 
No you can't reverse it, the connectors look like this:

xxxxx
xoxxx

Is there a way to connect both the speakers and the headphone using just the rear connection? Is there some kind of splitter that does this? And would you get sound on both when both are plugged in?

Thanks again for the help.
 
Sure.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10218&cs_id=1021808&p_id=5614&seq=1&format=2

Here's the problem - it's a passive adapter that makes an electrical connection to both devices simultaneously. So yes, it does make sound out of both at once. It also means that the output devices are in parallel giving a lower impedance than either alone and drawing more current, and since the impedance for the speakers and headphones won't be equal, the lower-impedance device will draw too much current while the other draws too little. It will work, but maybe not well, and maybe bad shit can happen.

A better solution is a switch. I found this quick, you can probably do better. It should also be really, really easy to make your own if you can solder. This way, only one device is part of the circuit at a time.

http://electronicsusa.com/mk1and2.html

Other alternatives: plain old ordinary jack swapping, or connecting the headphones to something else (USB sound card, headphone amp, whatever).
 
I just picked one of these up last week for my system rebuild and ran into the same problems.

First make sure you've got the latest drivers installed from Asus. After that from the Xonar control panel there is an up or down triangle that you can click which will open up the control panel even more and from there you can find a drop down and switch to FP_Headphones. This will turn off the back-panel audio out and swap you to the front.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to do auto detection for headphones (seriously WTF ASUS) and the number of clicks to do all this garbage, and the lack of good Windows 7 drivers/control panel has me considering just craigslisting the Xonar and using onboard audio.
 
I have the latest driver for the Xonar, do I need to update my MB and BIOS as well?

Under my drop down list, I only have Headphone, no FP_Headphone.

Do you have yours working docvego?

Another sort of related question, would a M-Audio 2496 give me better sound quality over the Xonar DX?
 
Yeah, I was able to get it to work. I had it plugged in using the HD Audio plug on my case (Coolermaster ATCS 840) This was all in Windows 7 64-bit using their latest drivers.

Just make sure you've got the latest drivers for whatever OS you're running from ASUS's website.
 
I'm home now and sorry about my previous post. I actually do have the FP_headphone option in my Xonar DX Audio Center. When I switch to that, my speakers are cut off, which is a progress, but I don't have any sound from the headphone.

Any suggestions guys?
 
That's a good sign then. Just check your connections would be my suggestion... and try the on-board too if that's an option.
 
Still no go, I tried both the HD Audio plug and the AC97 plug. I also downloaded both the most recent RealTek and HD drivers from the Asus site (Not sure why I need this if I'm bypassing the MB altogether), I also tried both the latest Xonar DX driver and the beta version.

Any ideas?

For the sound card install, I just plugged it into the PCI-E port on the MB, plugged the 4-pin power in, and plugged the HD Audio/AC97 into the F_Audio plug on the card. That's it, right?

Do I need to update BIOS or set anything in there at all?
 
My only other suggestion is pop the Xonar out, and see if you can get the front panel connection stuff to work using the mobo's front panel hookup pin. That way you can at least isolate the problem to see if it's a problem with your case's front panel hookup or the xonar soundcard.
 
How would I go about checking that? Just to see if the front end of the wire looks OK?
 
How would I go about checking that? Just to see if the front end of the wire looks OK?
Click to expand...

Imagine you didn't own the Xonar at all. Hook up front panel audio using onboard sound, and try to make it work.

-------------------------------------

The problem is either the sound card, the case wiring or user error.

If you can get the motherboard's onboard sound to work with your case's front panel interface, then you know that the wiring of the case is good, and that the problem is with the Xonar (talk to ASUS or the place you got the card).

If you can't get the motherboard's on-board sound to work with your front panel inputs (and I'm guessing also you've never had the front panel inputs working before) then the problem is most likely with the case wiring.

The key with troubleshooting is to define what parts of the system are working, so through process of elimination you can isolate the problem. :)
 
Tried that, that didn't work either...

Does this mean I have a hooped wire?
 
Could do. You could also have a defective part, or you could still somehow be setting it up improperly.

IMO anyone who works with tech should at least have a $12 crap-quality multimeter available. It's very helpful in eliminating potential causes when working with hardware.
 
Well I fiddled around with it a bit again, turns out, I had been plugging my headphone into the Mic-in port :rolleyes:

The weird thing is, that is the only one I can plug my 3.5mm stereo plug on the headphone into. The green port (supposedly the headphone-in) won't even take the 3.5 stereo plug. It goes in about 1/3 and gets stuck.

Another weird thing is when I select Headphone instead of Mic as the device when the Realtek panel pops up, I now get sound coming out of my headphone.

Any idea why it's doing this guys?
 
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