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Im looking to get a Dell Inspiron 537s as my media center pc and add an Nvidia 9500 to it with an HDMI port.
I was intending to have the audio pass through to the HDMI port via an SPDIF port on the motherboard, but i recently found out that the Inspiron 537s doesnt seem to have an SPDIF port on the motherboard.
So, because theres no SPDIF on the motherboard, im looking to find a low-profile soundcard that can do SPDIF out. Any suggestions?
Thanks
-Ash-
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I have exactly the same issue, with a Dell 5150c. Makes it worse that I need it to be PCIe and Low Profile. Did you ever manage to find something?
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bobo1on1
cheapass Team-XBMC Developer
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What kind of spdif are you looking for? There's coaxial, optical and ttl.
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Derek
Posting Freak
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I think they mean an internal spdif connector as found on the MB with 2 pins, sig and gnd?
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Yes I would like a sound card with an internal spdif header, so I can link it internally to my nvidea card and use the HDMI port for audio and video. I have managed to get a cable that will convert a coax spdif to internal, so I would only need to run it to the inside of the pc. But now I am trying to find a low profile card with coax spdif output!
The Dell 5150c has optical spdif output on the back, but to convert this to coax I believe I need a box that requires a separate power source, and I don't really want another power cable, let alone another device.
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bisch
Junior Member
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I think pretty much any sound card regardless of age and or quality will work fine as long as it has a spdif out.
My Circa 1997-98 sound blaster live value I dug out of the archives worked perfectly with my 8400gs msi passive video card in xbmc live. I think I read similar, that anything with an spdif out will do the job.
Hope this helps
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The issue is trying to find a card that is PCIe 1x, low profile and has either spdif coax output on the back, or an spdif header in the inside.
If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks
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I'm looking for the same thing, that or a USB one, you find anything?
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I ended up using the built in sound card, as it had a digial spdif out. I bought a digial to coax converter, then run the coax inside the pc, converting the connector from a phono to the 2 pin internal connector. I now have the sound coming out of the HDMI lead! I couldn't get it to work on ubuntu though, so I ended up running XBMC on a windoze machine :-(
