Given you have both plugs connected to an output device, notice the green plug will appear not greyed out. In the case that Windows’s speaker UI doesn’t let us choose between the back panel vs front panel’s output. How To Switch Between Headphone vs Desktop Speaker Audio Meaning, when you choose the playback device from the Windows audio “ Select playback device” it is under “Speaker” for one audio stream among other audio outputs depends on your device’s capabilities such as Digital Output (Optical) and HDMI Output.This begs the question if that’s one audio stream, how to switch and choose which output to play the sound without physically plugin and unplug the aux cable every time when you want to switch to a different audio playback device. In Windows, Realtek considers both the Back Panel and Front Panel’s analog audio output to be the same audio stream.
If you have a traditional desktop tower chances are your motherboard relays on Realtek’s driver to output sound to external speakers and headphones. Realtek is the biggest audio driver provider for PC.