Front Panel connection to sound card

Thanks Firebird for your reply.

I looked up the cable and found it, its this. I hear all Dell spare parts are outsourced now so got it from that company. I am guessing, however, if I am disconnecting theexisting wire from the front panel I/O to the motherboard, all the functions the front panel currently has (USB, mic and headphone sockets) will instead run through this cable. It is called MD186 (Dell media cable). The red and black one I mentioned I found out is the thermal connection from the front panel to the motherboard.

I have an Dimension E510 which is from the same "BTX" era.  But I don't know where you would plug in this cable, you don't want to disconnect the front panel cable as this one only looks like it has the "ATX" audio connection to a sound card (the small black connector).   There may be a point on the front panel I/O board where the white part connects, instead of the factory cable.  I seem to remember someone posting that it was possible to connect a standard cable that way on some models.  That would just be for front panel headphone and jack and not for the other functions.

Thanks Firebird for your reply. I looked up the cable and found it, its this. I hear all Dell spare parts are outsourced now so got it from that company. I am guessing, however, if I am disconnecting theexisting wire from the front panel I/O to the motherboard, all the functions the front panel currently has (USB, mic and headphone sockets) will instead run through this cable. It is called MD186 (Dell media cable). The red and black one I mentioned I found out is the thermal connection from the front panel to the motherboard.

The white connector looks like the 10-pin design used with some of the Soundblaster boards. My 4550 had such a connector, which proved compatible with a  Soundblaster Audigy I bought on Amazon.

I bought a cable that connected a Soundblaster to a standard ten-pin socket, but I haven't seen one that does the reverse.

Just to give an update. Firebird was right, the cable does not fit the motoerboard, so the MD186 has been sent back. Which is a shame because I now think there is no such connector. Think I will just use the headphone port at the back of the machine instead. Thanks so much for your help, or if you are aware of a different cable I will be very happy to know.

Allen

On my Dell 9200 PC, one end of the red/black cable discussed here is connected to the thermal sensor connector located on the Dell front I/O panel (3.5 mm headphone socket; 3.5 mm microphone socket; 2 x USB 2.0 sockets); the other end connects to the thermal sensor connector on the Dell motherboard (shown as connector number 17, on page 81 of my paper copy of the Dell Dimension 9200 Owner's Manual that came with the Dell at the time of purchase, three years ago).

I came to this page, however, because my Dell Dimension 9200 came with an optional, Dell proprietary version Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card already installed. This Dell X-Fi SB, however, has no set of pins on it that will allow me to connect to it the Dell "Front I/O Panel" wide, white ribbon cable that came installed in the PC. Instead, at PC purchase, the latter came connected between the Dell front I/O panel pins, directly to the the Dell "front panel I/O connector" pins on the motherboard (shown as connector number 4, page 81, same manual).

Further, I can see the "Front Panel 3.5 mm microphone socket" showing twice in the list of "Recording Devices" in the Sound menu provided by Vista Ultimate 32 SP2  - once as an unplugged SB device; the second entry is as an unplugged 4-High Definition (Microsoft) device.

But, in common it seems with many other posters on these Dell audio pages, there is no sign of ANY headphones option in the "Playback Devices" in the same Sound menu, which I could then enable - so to use the headphones we've recently bought, I have to plug the headphones into either of the green audio output sockets on the back of the Dell - one's on the SB card; the other belongs to the integrated audio chip set on the mobo. The headphones then work fine

Having read through most of the many posts here that would suggest I should be able to switch the mobo end of the wide, white Dell ribbon cable from the pins on the mobo to an equivalent set of pins on the Dell SB card, and thereby enable the headphones option (perhaps), I'm mystified that the Dell SB card has no set of pins on it to permit me physically to do this.

Both USB sockets on the Dell front I/O panel work fine btw.

I'm baffled. Can anyone shed any further light on this for me? Thanks.