Headphones & speaker q on the xfi extreme ga

Question

i have the evga 680i mobo as well as the creative xfi soundcard. i have been unable so far to get the mic on my headset recognized in windows, but the headphones (i have a sennheiser headset that has a mic and headphones, each with their own stereo cable) are working properly when plugged into the front panel on my lian li case. i have the 680i's onboard realtek sound disabled, so i am not expecting to be able to use the mic through that. here's my problem:
i want the creative xfi to handle the all sound for my computer, but annoyingly enough, there aren't enough slots on the card itself for both speakers and headphones, which is quite an oversite on creative's part imo, forcing me to switch between plugging in either my headphones or 4. speakers. am i missing something here, or is it impossible for me to have both my 4. klipsch speakers (2 stereo cables), my headphones ( cable, which seems to need to share the line out with of the klipsch speaker cables), and my mic ( stereo cable) all plugged into my xfi card at the same time?
if so, bad move creative. you guys must know that lots of gamers use headsets, and that many headsets now have both mics and headphones, which requires 2 stereo cables. if i want to use the mic, and i do (for both work and gaming), then there is no way i can plug the mic on it into the creative card and then plug the headphones on the front of the computer.
i bought all my components on newegg at the same time, so i had no way of knowing this would happen.
anyone have any advice?
thanks
my headphone cable isn't long enough to allow me to plug into the front panel while the mic cable is plugged into my creative soundcard.
the mic will however sctetch from the the back of the mobo to the soundcard outputs, but it looks like on the 680i that only the front headphone plug in works if the 680i isn't the default sound setting.

Answer 1

I am dying to get home and tinker with my X-fi extreme gamer, so I can get the front audio mic jack to work with my Sennheiser PC 5's. My case is a Coolermaster Ammo 533 with the front audio jack having the choices of AC'97, HD, and a bunch of loose Azalia wires for FP audio hookup. I hooked up the HD jack to the card pins, and looking at various "pinouts" from Creative and Coolermaster the specs match up. I hear audio (and it rocks!) and I also set it up to mute back speakers & use CMSS?under "headphone detection" and that works, but I just can't get the mic to record or register. (It registered on my old Audigy Platinum with 5 /4 I/O bay, so it can't be the headset, unless the soundcard fried my mic. I just wish selecting the functions of "flexi jack" or "mic" in weren't so @#$% confusing. (Should I be choosing "mic", "line", or "wave" for it to detect?) I'm guessing the OBVIOUS "mic". Who knows? I'll be tinkering, drinking, and cursing it at some time tonight! I have a wife and toddler, so I have very little time to screw around with PC issues, let alone a hundred dollar soundcard one!!!Message Edited by Blister972 on 05-4-200704:04 PM