Onboard sound AND a sound card

[Big_Daddy]

I have onboard sound. If I add a sound card, will both sources be active? IOW, can I hook my headphones to the sound card output and my speakers to the onboard output?

[mjolnir1134]

Nope. Only one source will be used at a time. Otherwise it would cause conflicts and the like.

If you want headphones to be plugged in your computer, they can get sound from:

1)Your speaker satellites (if they have any headphone plugs on them) (and if the speakers are connected to the sound card)

2)Directly from your sound card output plugs.

[Friedchicken100]

Some sound cards and onboards allow you to configure the jacks through proprietary software. I wouldn't try running a card AND onboard. It might cause IRQ conflicts or compete for system resources.

[carl33p]

If you are going to add a sound card, make sure to disable onboard sound first.

[DanU]

You can successfully have both your on-board sound and a sound card installed. I've done it before and it works fine. You can switch between the two in the "Sound and Audio Devices" control panel. However, there can be only one "default" sound adapter. Windows will use this sound card for all it's system sounds, and most programs will default to using the default sound adapter.

Most programs will allow you to output to audio devices other than the "default device" selected in the control panel. You could have one audio adapter used as the primary windows audio adapter while another program (like an mp3 player) using the other audio adapter. Some specialized software will even input and output to/from multiple sound cards at the same time, but most software can't do this.