It sounds like the iThingy type. The connectors are for left, right, mic and ground. In which order, that's the question. And that's probably why your StarTec didn't work... Or you just plugged the speaker to the mic and vice versa? Or, your front panel connectors haven't been connected to the motherboard, or they've been connected wrong. Have you tried the splitter with the back panel audio connectors? There's even some possibility that you have a Realtek sound circuit and there's a tick in a wrong box, preventing the front panel to recognize new devices.