Skybuck Flying wrote:
I am considering this board out of lazyness, however figuring out how to
connect the 7.1 receiver to it is the hard part.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...Specifications

This sentence is a bit weird:

"- HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker /
Microphone"

Almost seems like only a few speakers can be connected ?!?

Anybody know for sure if 7 analog RCA/speakers can be connected to it via
receiver with 3 plugs or so ? (Don't need bass).

I'll go check manual, maybe there is some information inside it about but I
doubt it... the asus manual didn't...

Bye,
Skybuck.

So I'm looking at the page you posted.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...Specifications

I see:

1) Micro ATX Form Factor: 9.6-in x 8.6-in

It only has room for *one* video card.

2) 4 x DDR DIMM slots

Those are the 184 pin kind. Two blue ones, two black ones.

3) S939 socket - you check the CPU support table, to make sure your 3800+
revision is supported.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=939A790GMH

4) 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC888 Audio Codec)

http://www.asrock.com/mb/photo/IO/939A790GMH(m).jpg

There are actually two different motherboard manuals. One is 58 pages
and the other is 129 pages. In the 129 page one, there is a table
which shows audio configurations. None of them give decent
documentation on audio.

I had to refer to my ALC888 designer's data sheet. It
shows several jack configurations. This is the "five jacks
plus SPDIF" configuration, which is not the same as a regular
"six jacks" audio setup I have on my motherboard. By using
a "five jack" setup, you get four jacks for 7.1 plus Microphone
input and lose the Line In connector. The SPDIF_OUT is a digital
connector, for a 75 ohm coaxial connection to your receiver/amp,
and would not be very useful for 7.1, so you would not be using it.
That makes the SPDIF_OUT jack a waste of space.

(Orange) Center/Sub --- X X --- Side Surround Pair (blue)

(Black) Rear Pair --- X X --- Front Pair (green)

SPDIF_OUT --- X X --- Microphone Input (pink)

The jack configuration means you can do 7.1 audio output, but at
the expense of losing Line In. I use my Line In for a TV tuner card,
so the audio setup on this motherboard would not be useful to me.

If you use the RealTek Audio control panel to change the configuration
to 5.1 mode, the jack definition looks like this.

(Orange) Center/Sub --- X X --- Line In (blue)

(Black) Rear Pair --- X X --- Front Pair (green)

SPDIF_OUT --- X X --- Microphone Input (pink)

To get your own copy of the ALC888 reference design document, go here
and scroll down to the ALC888 section. Look for 2008/5/8 382k.
Using one of the three FTP servers, should give you a downloaded
file with the name 2008-04-01_ALC888_888-VC%20demo%20circuit%20ver.0.56.zip
and inside there is a PDF file.

http://www.realtek.com/downloads/dow...w nloads=true

HTH,
Paul