How exactly does one change jumpers on a non-PnP sound card?

[Galahad]

Hi, sorry as i don't mean to ask a dumb question or anything, but how exactly does one change jumpers on a non-PnP sound card?  I am a lil confused -- are you supposed to lift the the dark piece of plastic completely off of the the metal prong?  Or are you supposed to just raise the plastic piece to the top portion of the metal prong?

(The main reason I am confused i guess is because by the time I started playing classic computer games, they were already all mostly PnP, so I never actually changed any jumpers so far to date on a non-PnP card.)

Thanks in advance for your help! 

[jharris01]

When two metal prong thingies are covered by the plastic cap then whatever value the jumper connection represents is considered turned on (enabled). To disable (turn off) a value remove the jumper or leave the cap covering only one of the prongs. Usually jumper settings are written nearby or engraved in the very same sound card. In the case of sound cards you usually see words like "IRQ 5", "IRQ 7", "DMA 1", etc. Others require to have the manual (some which can be found on the Internet).

In most cases it is usually one jumper cap per setting, but multiple jumpers (for one setting) can also exist (depending on what hardware you got). Pay attention to the orientation of the jumpers so to avoid connecting prongs from different values (unless the manual or engraving in the electronics board says its okay).  Be careful to change jumper settings while the computer is turned off.

Hope this helps.

[Galahad]

Thank you so much for the very helpful and thorough answer there jharris; that was perfect, again thx and I appreciate all of your kind help!!