September 2010
Beginner
336 pages
7h 29m
English
Content preview from Upgrading and Fixing Computers: Do-it-Yourself For Dummies®Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 8. Fine-Tuning Your Computer's Sound
Topics and tasks in this chapter
Adding a sound card
Plugging the right cable into the right jack
Adding a sound box
Connecting your computer's sound to your home stereo
Routing sound through an HDMI cable
Years ago, computers simply beeped when you turned them on. A few early games managed to strangle the computer's little speaker into making squawking noises. Engineers eventually created sound cards: circuit-filled gadgets that plug inside your computer to add music and explosions to computer games. A few years later, the cards grew sophisticated enough to power speaker-filled home theaters.
Today, however, sound cards are slowly fading away. What once took a large circuit-filled card now lives on a single chip built into many computers' motherboards.
Some folks still shell out the cash for the higher-quality sound available only through an add-on card. Gamers still buy sound cards, for example, as do musicians, who turn their computers into full-fledged recording studios.
This chapter explains how to upgrade the sound on your computer, laptop, or netbook; plug the right cables into the right spots; and route the sound to your computer's speakers or to your home stereo.
Choosing a Compatible Sound Card
Today, nearly every computer, from netbooks to desktops, includes a ⅛-inch stereo speaker jack, and a ⅛-inch microphone jack. Plug in your headphones or a small microphone, and you're ready to hear music or record your own podcasts.
But when you're ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.