The headphones jack and volume control on the front panel of a DVD-ROM drive are only functional when you play an audio CD. When you play a DVD or game, the headphones jack and volume control are disabled. How do you keep them enabled? It can be done. I've seen it work on a home made machine but neither I nor the person that bought the parts, knows how the machine kept the front jack enabled for gameplay and DVDs.

I wasn't aware it could be done. I thought, output was for cd's only. It can't surely be done for DVD movies, as they have to be decoded and DVD roms don't have MPEG2 decoders in-built. Plus, there is no audio in on a cd rom, just an audio out to the soundcard. I will look into this, sounds interesting. Never even thought about it really, just use my headphones out on my speakers.

Well thats just for cd's only...if you want to use headphones for games and dvd's all you have to do is plug the headphones where the speakers are connected...thats all.

Vanusk17 is right on. There is no sound decoding like on a sound card on that front port in the drive. Its setup just like a portable CD player would be. Spend a buck or two and get an extension cable...so you can swap from speakers to headphones conveniently.