I purchased an SB Audigy2 zs gamer last year for my homebuilt system, and I am pleased with it up till this point. (I did not get the version with the "breakout" IO box) it is just a stand alone card.
My problem is, now I want to use ventrilo for in-game communications as well as x-fire, but the card does not have a line out for headphones. Only a line in for a mic.
My MB on the other hand is an ASUS A7N8XE-deluxe with on-board audio being ac-97 and nforce2 audio.
Is there a way i can still use the jacks (mic and headphone) in the MB's IO ports, totally bypassing the card itself?
I tried re-installing my nforce drivers to have access to the audio part and it caused alot of graphical as well as auditory issues, but i managed to get everything stable. But in order to use my headset for gameing I had to readjust all my adio properties in control panel. With all that that needed to be done , it was too much of a hassle to have headphones.
And yes I am too cheap to purchase the IO box for the card itself. This card is 2 years outdated and it costs on avg....the same price today as it did 2 years ago. The IO box seperate on e-bay goes for MORE than a new Platinum edition does.
So please any gurus out the...if you know of a way to use the mb's IO ports WITH an installed soundcard....PLEASE respond to this
Thanx.

You can make headphone outs with just a few parts... create a left and a right with a solder iron, connect to a purchased socket. It won't be pretty but it will work fine.
Otherwise, sound cards are so very cheap, and used ones are nearly free in any repair shop. Why not just use the AC'97 setup. It is good enough for headphone work.
But you cannot have both.

I do have a sound card. An Audigy 2zs that works wonderfully, but has no headphone out on the card itself.
I could go back to using on-board audio, but then I will loose all of my DTX and THX decoding from the soundcard. It would be like buying a DTS audio dics and making an analog tape of it to listen to.
I dont to have access to all the bells and whistles that the nforce audio drivers will give me, I just want to be able to use the headphone out and mic input on the motherboards io port.
I am at a lose with this problem.
Why do soundcard makers, who produce some of the most outstanding soundcards on the market, do not offer headphone out ON the card?

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