It doesn't mean that each manufacturer and each model of sound cards uses its own system, and in some cases we can get sound cards that contain certain connectors that others do not. In any case, what we will explain next is all you can find on a modern PC card, you will now know what is connected to each connector and to each state.
Integrated sound card connectors
Nowadays all PC codes have incorporated an integrated sound card, in its control. So, at the back ports of the motherboard we will find audio connectors compatible with the sound card, where we have to connect our speakers, headphones or audio system as long as it is not USB.
The most common is to find the connectors arranged as in the image above, on the right, identified both by screen printed on I / O shield and color coded. Usually you will only use the green of the speakers and pink with the microphone, but this is for use by all connectors:
- Orange: medium speaker or sub-domain.
- Blue: line entries. It is used to connect external audio sources, and only the sound card input connector in addition to the microphone.
- Black: rear speaker
- It's green: front stereo speakers.
- Rose: microphone
- Connector TOSLINK (called S / PDIF out) is a digital audio output, which is able to combine all of the above in a single string.
Note: on some motherboards we will get another gray 3.5mm minioker connector instead of TOSLINK, and it is designed for the center speaker, leaving only orange with a subwoofer.
Be careful to include color codes, since some of the billboards (especially the ones on the top) are not identified as such.
However, they will be labeled with labels, although unfortunately they will probably be the case in English. In any case, the supply remains the same and this is what they say:
- C / SUB: is equivalent to orange, and is used for medium or medium speaker.
- Line IN: blue equivalent, line input.
- After: equivalent to black, used to connect the rear speaker.
- Draw a line: the equivalent of green, they are the front speakers.
- Mic in: is the same size as pink and microphone.
- SPDIF OUT: similar to the previous one.
In this case, we can find another connector instead of TOSLINK entitled "Center" directly, and logically the same as the gray connector.
Other audio card connectors
For many dedicated sound cards, and some integrated into motherboard, we can find other connectors, although today they are rare. In particular we can see the orange RCA connector (standard) that, although it may not seem so because of its simplicity, is a digital connector that does the same with S / PDIF TOSLINK.
There are some rare cases and we will only see on professional-intended sound cards where we can find other connectors, such as MIDI, FireWire or a standard Gaming control port, which though it seems to work for connecting Analog Joystick on very old sound cards.
