Please help I'm confused

[james_11]

I have a gateway 838GM my speaker output on the back don't work so I'm using the one on the front. I want to fix it and have boxes full of different sound cards but I realized they all have different connections, Can you put any sound card in any computer? Or does it have to have the same connection

 

[daship]

If it aint the right connection for your available slots then obviously it wnt work.

 

[indigoataxia]

If by connection you mean the bus interface than obviously your pc needs that bus available, whether its PCI, PCI-E 1x, or a USB dongle (only 3 i know of). If you mean the outputs on the back of the cards, if your only looking for a single output im sure one of them can do that and you can just ignore the others which are for bass and satellite speakers.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

Are you using vista or XP? did you set your speaker config to surround sound?

 

[mamw93]

Most sound cards are still PCI. As long as you have an open PCI slot it will work. Some newer cards use PCI Express x1 and you'll either need an open PCI Express x1 (The shortest in physical length of the PCI Express line), PCIe x4 (Little longer), PCIe x8 (Same length as a PCIe x16 video card slot jsut runs at lower electricity), or a PCIe x16 slot (Newest video card slot.) Each will work but if you go with something longer than x1 it will just run at the lower electric rate... no performance will be lost or gained though. I have put a sound card into a PCIe x16 lane before to test it out and it worked fine.