Motherboard audio to analog (RCA red/white)

Question

I'm building a NES PC casemod and want to use the RCA jacks in the case for the audio connection. I'm using the Intel D945GCLF2 which has motherboard pins for front-panel audio as well as S/PDIF audio.

What would you suggestion doing in this case? It seems to be easier to wire the front-panel audio pins to left/right RCA jacks but is it as simple as wiring the signal/ground or do I have to convert the audio signals from digital to analog?

Has anyone done any motherboard audio wiring who could shed some light on this for me?

Answer 1

The motherboard PDF reference you link shows a Audio header reference on the last page.
These are for wiring to a cabinet speaker.

If you want to extend Stereo output over two RCA jacks,
I think connecting them internally to the Front Panel header
(integrated HD, numbered '7' on page 3)
over the front-left and front-right jacks would be suitable.
This can be done with an extension wire or manually wiring through the signal/ground paths.

You can change the HD Audio configuration to use Stereo output (rather than 5.1) later.

S/PDIF is usually a digital path.

Answer 2

Normally it will be analogue audio, and the wiring would be simple. It's possible that there could be pins for S/PDIF on the motherboard, but I expect they would be labeled as such.

It's hard to say any more without knowing what motherboard it is.