Should I connect the audio cable to the CD ROM drive?

[Burnham Beech]

I am putting some software on a PC and noted that both CD ROM and the CD RW drives will play sound & music without the 4 pin analogue cable connected. One connector is missing, the other is hanging loose inside the case.

Doing a search on microsoft and the web I learnt that modern drives use a system called DAE - Digital Audio Extraction - to get sound. This is achieved through the IDE connection.

My question is should the 4 pin cable be connected as well. This PC has no sound card, but does have two 4 pin connectors on the mainboard.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

no need, unless you just want to listen to audio cd on your computer. it seems your sound card is built into the motherboard hence the 4 pin connectors, or it could be for the fans , in which case connecting it to the cdrom could result in some smoke being emit .....

 

[Burnham Beech]

I can already play Audio CDs on this computer.

I still don't know what is the point of connecting the CD drive to the audio inputs on the motherboard ?

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

the point of connecting cd drive to audio input: way back whence the cdrom drive costing upwads £500, it has a play button in the front, furthermore, windows was not all that "clever", one could pop an audio cd in the drive, press play and one could then enjoy the pleasure without having to click any button

 

[Channel Hopper]

I thought it was to allow connection of the audio path via a recognised impedance , rather than relying on a micro-thin PCB track, that might be considerably longer than 12 inches, and possibly running near tracks that could be generating noise/distortion.

(but what I know about PCs could be written on a floppy)