[stepih]

Hi, I have a question for gamers or people who use headsets and have a sound card. How do you plug in your headset when you want to switch from speakers to your headset.
 
The process that I have to do now is crawl under my desk, pull the back of my computer case to the side so I can access the back. Then unplug the speaker cable, then plug the headphone and mic cables. And this is not the end yet. Then I open up my Creative Audio Control Panel and switch the Speaker Configuration from "2.1 speakers" to Headphones. Only then can I start using skype etc.
 
I get and make skype calls several times a day and it's super annoying to do all this work every time, especially crawling under the desk and playing there doggy style with a flashlight.
 
Is there a better way to do all this? Someone might suggest plugging it into the front panel, but my front pannel is connected to the motherboard's audio, which sounds awful. Maybe there's a way to route front pannel to the sound card? I belive even my Creative Audio Control Panel switches to the Headphone mode automatically when I plug into the front.

 

[Errymoose]

there's a little jumper for front panel audio plugged into your motherboard.  I believe most sound cards have pins you can plug it into instead.

 

[devhen]

For one thing, most sound cards have a connector for the front-panel headphone jack. Your case will have a cable coming from the front-panel jacks that is connected to your motherboard. It will say something AC97 or Intel HD Audio on it. Unplug that from your motherboard and plug it into your sound card in the proper jack.
 
EDIT: This is the same thing Errymoose is talking about.
 
Another thing-- a lot of sound card software will allow you to designate what jacks on the sound card are for what. This should allow you to plug both your headphones/headset and speakers into the sound card at the same time using the microphone/line-in/line-out or one of the other existing jacks and you just need to tell your sound card software to treat that jack as an output.