PCA Forums

I have the Abit NF7 that has optical out. Basically, i will need to use this to hook up to my reciever for some true 5.1 Bose sound for my htpc setup. So, my question is, do i need to have the unboard sound enabled to use this or is this seperate? The onboard sound on this board basically doesn't work (as in, it is such bad quality i'd never consider actually using it). It isn't the NF7-S. Right now, i have onboard sound disabled, but the red optical light in female jack is on, but it seems to me i'd need the onboard enabled. Also, if i have to enable the onboard sound, will it still work with my sound card in? I have SB Live 5.1. I'd assume so but i did have an instance of it causing instability about a year ago, but several variables have changed since then. Let me know, thanks a lot.

The optical out is controlled by the onboard sound, as far as I can tell. When you use the Optical the codecs do no surround sound processing IF you tell the program to use SPDIF, otherwise the onboard sound does do the processing. I am using my digital coax output on my A7N8X Deluxe to go to my Yamaha receiver and it works fine. I get Dolby Digital when using most everything (SoundStorm) and DTS or DD or whatever depending on what the DVD uses. You have to specifically tell PowerDVD (or whatever) to use SPDIF though.

As far as conflicts go, it will work but I believe you can only have one device using output and to change which one you have to go in to the Control Panel and change the device or it may be per program settings (i.e. in Winamp you can select which device).

Well, in that case, i'd still be using analog from the SB live and just the optical from the onboard. That should be set then right?