New PC - nowhere to plug speakers in?!

spookylukey

My new Vista PC came today so have spent the best part of tonight setting it up, I kept my old TFT monitor and speakers as there was nothing wrong with them and just bought a Dell Vostro base unit. My old PC had a small purple DC-12V socket next to the power cable socket where the speaker cable went - see photo.

My new one doesn't seem to have this socket, the speakers have two cables - a thin pale green male pin which there is a socket for on the new PC and a Purple female pin which there isn't a socket for. Is there a way to make my speakers work with this new PC? Photos are of:

Old PC 'purple' socket
New PC - back of (with lack of purple socket!)
Purple female pin from speakers







Thanks in advance for any input

gorblimeyguvnor

Prehaps because the Vostro series seems to be more for business use it doesn't have a sound card by default?

steveeeee

The green socket which you found is the audio output from the PC. From the looks of it, this purple socket was a non-standard additional DC power supply output specifically for your speakers. Some computer speakers will work fine without power, they just won't be very loud.

If your speakers need power to work at all, you will need to buy a replacement power supply for them. Depending on how much this ends up costing and how much hassle it might be to find the right one, it might be easier to just buy a new set of speakers and stick the old ones on Freecycle.

noh

The green socket is sound out from your new computer.
Your speakers need 12V to power them this was provided from your old computer by the purple 12V socket. I have not seen this before usually the speakers will have their own power supply. Unfortunately I think the easiest way out is to buy a new set of speakers. Hers's the manual for your new computer if you haven't already found it. http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos400/EN/pdf/CR532A00MR.pdf

Edit: Snap! Looks like I need to type faster!

Nigel

culpepper

we had this same thing with my daughters old pc.The old one had a power supply socket for the speakers. We had to buy her new speakers with their own power supply as noh has stated.

spookylukey

Thanks everyone I googled 'purple speaker socket PC' and came across a post on another forum saying that the purple socket is specific to Packard Bell PC's only (which my old one is).

Am quite happy to get some new speakers but presumed they would all have this purple pin which would mean I wouldn't be able to use them, didn't realise that they came with their own power supply!

Thanks again