I got an Abit NF7-S which has a 14-pin header for front panel audio
connectors. In this header there are 2 pins for the left channel and 2
for the right channel. Across the left-left pins is a jumper and the
right-right pins are also jumpered. So there a

left o-o left
right o-o right

where o-o is the jumper across the 2 pins. I got a case that had audio
connectors on the front figuring to hook them up to this header. Not so
easy, though. The audio connectors on the front of the case go to a
shielded 2-wire cable with a mini plug on the end (the type and size you
plug into your portable radio). This means there are only 3 conductors:
left, right, and ground/shield. The pins in the header aren't labelled:

left o-o ground
right o-o ground

If that were indeed the actually signal connections in the mobo header
then I could probably rig up a converter from the 1/8" mini stereo plug
to go to the header pins (i.e., wire up a female stereo plug where the
shield went to both of whichever are the unmarked ground pins in the
header and the 2 signal lines to which were the left and right signal
pin in the header).

I believe headphone jacks work by being shorted when no plug is
installed. With no headphone plug inserted, the jack is shorted and so
the header pins would also be shorted. When you insert the headphone
jack, the circuit opens and has to pass to and through the headphone
speakers. Okay, but still there are only 3 wires in the headphone jack:
left, right, and ground/shield. Yet there are 2 pairs of pins for a
total of 4 connections.

The 14-pin header is supposed to be used for the Abit Media XP Pro kit.
It has 2 USB ports but I already have that in the case's front panel.
It has 1 fireware port but I have 2 in the rear bracket and which also
adds another 2 USB ports at the rear. It adds an S/PDIF input but I
don't need it, just like I don't need the memory stick reader slots.
There really isn't a reason to waste a 5-1/4" drive bay for their media
kit since all I want is to hookup the audio ports in the case front
panel to the header on the mobo, but I'm not sure it can be done.

The case's front panel also provides a mic port. Peculiarly they also
attached a stereo mini plug to that port although the left and right are
shorted together (since the mic input is mono, anyway, especially since
there is only one "mic" pin in the 14-pin mobo header so the other
connection is to ground/shield).

So for the audio ports in the case, is that I:

- Remove the jumper from the left-left set of pins in the 14-pin mobo
header.
- Connect the left-channel conductor from the stereo mini plug from the
case panel audio port to, say, the leftside "left" marked pin in the
header.
- Remove the jumper from the right-right set of pins in the 14-pin mobo
header.
- Connect the right-channel conductor from the stereo mini plug from the
case panel audio port to, say, the leftside "right" marked pin in the
header.
- Run the ground/shield conductor from the stereo mini plug from the
case panel audio port to both the rightside "left" and "right" marked
pins in the header.

And for the mic port in the case, I would:

- The left- and right-channel conductors in the stereo mini plug are
shorted together (for mono mic input). So run either to the "mic"
marked pin in the header.
- Run the ground/shield conductor from the stereo mini plug from the
case panel mic port to the "gnd" marked pin that pairs up with the "mic"
marked pin in the header.

Or maybe it just can't be done and I'll have to forego the front panel
ports for headphone and mic. The cables are long enough to pass out
through a cutout in the backside. So I could run the mic cable to the
mic input of the sound card. But I can't run the headphone cable to the
line-out connector on the sound card else I lose the connection to the
speakers, and using a Y-adapter to connect both speakers and headphone
to the line-out jack won't get the speakers to cut out when the
headphone is plugged in.
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