This is just gripin' but I had to tell somebody -- and at least the folks here understand...

I'm pretty sure my speakers have finally died (at least, mostly). For months now, they would randomly cut out, and the way to bring them back was to jiggle the SPDIF connector on the subwoofer a few times. I tried that and no dice, so I guess I need to do something. Naturally, I took the opportunity to completely disassemble everything and get to cleaning the parts (ew!) and rerouting the wiring. You can't tell me you've never done that...

Now for the gripe: I've seen web pages with the beautiful wire management work, I'm sure you have too. In the course of buying, building, and owning this computer, I have learned it is a HELL of lot easier to do wire management when your case is nearly empty!!

The problem is that I wanted STUFF in my computer: I've got a DVD, a cassette deck (no joke), an Audigy 2 card with the drive bay thing, a TV capture card with ANOTHER drive bay thing, two different fan cards, a USB hub, a fan controller, 4 cold cathode lights, 5 case fans, and the original version of the Ultra power supply with the REALLY FAT CABLES!!

I should probably post pictures....

Anyway, so far, I have successfully routed the cable from the DVD to sound card. Think about that for a second...





R.

Why would you plug in the line from the DVD drive to the sound card? It's faster (and sounds better) to let it transfer the bitstream over the bus.

Because I had no idea such a thing was possible...

What do I do, attach only power and data (IDE in my case) to the DVD drive and let the computer take care of the rest?? This setup will play music CDs??


Holy smokes!!! Did everyone know this but me??

Yes

Yes

Well, this is the reason I read the OCC forums. I guess I'll undo the one thing I accomplished...

Yeah, I stopped attaching those a long time ago..honestly not sure why they are still included.


...and yes, you should post pictures

Pictures to be forthcoming this weekend. I might even make a new gallery entry, if I think I can withstand the abuse...