New Questions About My New SATA DVD Birner

As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
cables to hook it up. It is now working.

But I now have two more questions:

1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
Press TAB key into user window.
I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
it.
So, I am wondering what this is all about.

2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
speakers (via mobo) up to the drive. Big surprise. To me
anyway.
So, I am wondering how the sound is conveyed to my speakers.
Through the SATA connection to the mobo I would guess.

Thanks

Gecko

gecko wrote:
>
> As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
> burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
> cables to hook it up. It is now working.
>
> But I now have two more questions:
>
> 1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
> Press TAB key into user window.
> I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
> I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
> it.
> So, I am wondering what this is all about.
>
> 2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
> speakers (via mobo) up to the drive. Big surprise. To me
> anyway.

You are thinking of the analog cable that used to go from the CD drive to the sound card.

> So, I am wondering how the sound is conveyed to my speakers.
> Through the SATA connection to the mobo I would guess.

That is correct. In device manager check "Enable digital CD audio"

--
Mike Walsh

gecko <alpha@olympus.net> wrote in
news:71e8s31hm7ff8nc4v951sfblan5prrbmra@4ax.com:

> As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
> burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
> cables to hook it up. It is now working.
>
> But I now have two more questions:
>
> 1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
> Press TAB key into user window.
> I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
> I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
> it.
> So, I am wondering what this is all about.
>
> 2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
> speakers (via mobo) up to the drive.

Typically a four conductor cable that carries the analog audio signal
from a CD/DVD player or burner to the MOBO audio in connector. I am very
surprised that your MOBO has no such connector.

> Big surprise. To me anyway.
> So, I am wondering how the sound is conveyed to my speakers.
> Through the SATA connection to the mobo I would guess.

As the other poster indicated you must enable digital audio input since
you have no analog signal. This signal is carried to your MOBO through
the SATA data cable (or IDE if so equipped). With a typical setup you
could choose either for your audio input.

--
pcbldrNinetyEight

"pcbldrNinetyEight" <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9A50752092C0CpcbldrNinetyEight@216.168.3.4 4...
> gecko <alpha@olympus.net> wrote in
> news:71e8s31hm7ff8nc4v951sfblan5prrbmra@4ax.com:
>
>> As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
>> burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
>> cables to hook it up. It is now working.
>>
>> But I now have two more questions:
>>
>> 1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
>> Press TAB key into user window.
>> I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
>> I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
>> it.
>> So, I am wondering what this is all about.
>>
>> 2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
>> speakers (via mobo) up to the drive.
>
> Typically a four conductor cable that carries the analog audio signal
> from a CD/DVD player or burner to the MOBO audio in connector. I am very
> surprised that your MOBO has no such connector.

I think its the drive that is missing the connector!

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:52:09 -0000, "GT"
>
>I think its the drive that is missing the connector!
>

Yes - that is what I meant.

Gecko

"GT" <ContactGT_remove_@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:011c9abb$0$4569$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com:

> "pcbldrNinetyEight" <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9A50752092C0CpcbldrNinetyEight@216.168.3.4 4...
>> gecko <alpha@olympus.net> wrote in
>> news:71e8s31hm7ff8nc4v951sfblan5prrbmra@4ax.com:
>>
>>> As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
>>> burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
>>> cables to hook it up. It is now working.
>>>
>>> But I now have two more questions:
>>>
>>> 1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
>>> Press TAB key into user window.
>>> I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
>>> I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
>>> it.
>>> So, I am wondering what this is all about.
>>>
>>> 2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
>>> speakers (via mobo) up to the drive.
>>
>> Typically a four conductor cable that carries the analog audio signal
>> from a CD/DVD player or burner to the MOBO audio in connector. I am
>> very surprised that your MOBO has no such connector.
>
> I think its the drive that is missing the connector!

I would prefer to have an analog audio output connector on a DVD drive so I
could choose eithier digital or analog signal.

I have one drive a circa '02 CD burner that when set to digital playback
stutters. This stutter sounds like static. Switching from digital to
analog playback in the properties of Windows Media Player 9 fixed the
problem.

I recently built two identical PCs both with Sony AW-Q170A DVD burners
and right now I'm switching between digital and analog playback. I'd
have to say that I can't tell any difference. This is the first time
I've tried this with these drives so I'll have to do more listening
(with headphones).

Just to double check that WMP9 wasn't lying about the input I went into
Volume Control and muted the CD player. Now when I switch from digtal to
analog playback the sound is muted.

I also note that WMP9 has an option to choose either digital or analog
for copying. This seem superfluous since AFAIK any software for ripping
audio tracks from music CDs would only use the data from the drive data
cable and ignore the audio output from the drive's analog output. Go
figure???

--
pcbldrNinetyEight

"pcbldrNinetyEight" <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9A515F65ED8D2pcbldrNinetyEight@216.168.3.4 4...
> "GT" <ContactGT_remove_@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:011c9abb$0$4569$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com:
>
>> "pcbldrNinetyEight" <pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote in message
>> news:Xns9A50752092C0CpcbldrNinetyEight@216.168.3.4 4...
>>> gecko <alpha@olympus.net> wrote in
>>> news:71e8s31hm7ff8nc4v951sfblan5prrbmra@4ax.com:
>>>
>>>> As I indicated in my earlier posts, I mistakenly bought a SATA DVD
>>>> burner drive instead of a PATA drive. Anyway, I had to buy some
>>>> cables to hook it up. It is now working.
>>>>
>>>> But I now have two more questions:
>>>>
>>>> 1) At the beginning of boot I see a new message I never saw before -
>>>> Press TAB key into user window.
>>>> I ignored it and there seemed to be no effect.
>>>> I tried the tab key and nothing happened - it was if I ignored
>>>> it.
>>>> So, I am wondering what this is all about.
>>>>
>>>> 2) I am surprised to see there is no connection to connect my
>>>> speakers (via mobo) up to the drive.
>>>
>>> Typically a four conductor cable that carries the analog audio signal
>>> from a CD/DVD player or burner to the MOBO audio in connector. I am
>>> very surprised that your MOBO has no such connector.
>>
>> I think its the drive that is missing the connector!
>
> I would prefer to have an analog audio output connector on a DVD drive so
> I
> could choose eithier digital or analog signal.

Absolutely, but I (and I assume the OP) assumed that the new SATA DVD burner
would have the standard audio connector, but alas no.

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:22:40 -0000, pcbldrNinetyEight
<pcbldrninetyeight.com> wrote:


>I would prefer to have an analog audio output connector on a DVD drive so I
>could choose eithier digital or analog signal.

Choice IS good, but IMO you should never need the analog
unless there's another problem.


>
>I have one drive a circa '02 CD burner that when set to digital playback
>stutters. This stutter sounds like static. Switching from digital to
>analog playback in the properties of Windows Media Player 9 fixed the
>problem.

This seems like an audio card problem, it wouldn't be
surprising if the stutter/static reappeared in some other
use.



>
>I recently built two identical PCs both with Sony AW-Q170A DVD burners
>and right now I'm switching between digital and analog playback. I'd
>have to say that I can't tell any difference. This is the first time
>I've tried this with these drives so I'll have to do more listening
>(with headphones).

Perhaps, but if you are directly driving the headphones from
an audio card you may have already lost some fidelity making
it harder to discern between the two. Audio cards just
aren't designed for driving much of a load with rare
exception of some (generally older) OEM oriented boards
designed to directly drive passive speakers.