Using the front and back audio connectors

WARNING! This project involves some soldering and in the worst case of error your motherboard and devices attached to it can be permanently damaged. Do not follow my advises unless you know what you are doing.

Another annoying thing is that by attaching the audio front panel connectors to the motherboard, the back audio ports will be disconnected. Physically this is achieved by removing two jumpers from the motherboard audio on-board connector. I believe it is done this way because the motherboard supports 5.1 channel surround and turning this mode on reassigns the microphone jack to the surround speakers. In this case it would make no much sense to forward 2 channels to the front jack. However, this is just my assumption. I have slightly modified the case front audio cable by shortcutting the pins corresponding to the jumpers in order to have a standard stereo available on the back connectors for music and also on the front connectors for other applications like VoIP. The shortcut conductors are shown below. One needs two extra pins for the red conductors, I just took the ones remained after the modification of the USB bracket described above.

One should isolate the conductors to prevent shortcuts. A Scotch tape would be fine to use here. The back and front audio output jacks are working in parallel now. One should avoid simultaneously attaching to them the low-impedance devices (like headphones) in order not to overload the on-board electronics. After all these modifications the inner case layout is as it is shown below. The USB bracket on the back panel is mounted in the extension card opening.