No surround sound from speakers

pickarooney

I recently purchased these speakers :
http://www.adrenalinevault.com/hardware/getreview.asp?review=csfps1500

and have so far been unbale to get surround sound from them.
My motherboard has this onboard sound card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=P450-5110

and there are two leads in to it, one for the front speakers and one for the back. The colours of the speaker sockets matche the lead colours, for what it's worth, but only the front set of speakers produces any sound.
I'm not sure if my sound card simply isn't designed for surround sound, or if there's something I need to do to enable it, or if it's purely a question of mp3s/AVIs not being encoded in SS format.

Does anyone know how to either enable the back set of speakers or at least fake it so the sound from the front speakers is replicated through the back speakers as well?

leeroybrown

All 4 speakers (and subwoofer) should be giving sound output even if it's only a stereo input.

Do you mean that your motherboard has an onboard version of that sound card? (It's PCI)

The card shown there indicates that it has 6 channel support ... does your version?

Have you the correct drivers installed?

Not much help but your information is a bit sketchy.

Kali

Originally posted by leeroybrown
All 4 speakers (and subwoofer) should be giving sound output even if it's only a stereo input.

not unless they're setup to do that

Control Panel->Sounds/Multimedia->Audio
and there should hopefully be an advanced tab for your playback device there.. change the output to surround or whatever you like.

If that doesn't work install check for relevant options in your soundcards software.

pickarooney

Changed the output to Surround Sound, but no luck. Where do I

install check for relevant options in your soundcards software.

?

Balfa

Some soundcards have a shared port for rear-speaker out and line in or out, or something.

Right now the port is probably set up for the other use. You can probably change this in the onboard features (or whatever it's called) section of your bios. If not, there'll probably be something to change it in the drivers.

Edit: Could you post your motherboard make and model?

Eye

I have a similar problem with my creative 5.1 surround on XP

if it's set to surround sound of the proper 5.1 setting in the contol panel > Sound and Audio devices > Advanced ..... then i get no sound from the rear speakers, front 3 and sub woofer are fine

only way i could find of getting the rear ones working even with updated drivers was set it up as quadrophonic speakers rather than surround, for some unknown reason this works a treat and i now getting some wicked surround sound

hope this is of some use to you

pickarooney

Balfa, that sounds about right, I think the rear-speaker port might be configured for some other use.

My motherboard is this one:
http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/MB7602.htm


Now, looking at that page, the onboard sound card is said to be an AudioExcel 6-channel, whereas my hardware config has it as a
Cmedia 8738 6 Channel. Windows 2000 automatically recognised the sound card as this, and the drivers that came with the motherboard were for a CMedia card. Perhaps one is a clone of the other?
I'll have a look at my BIOS settings and see can I make any sense out of that.
Cheers.

pickarooney

BIOS settings didn't make a whole heap of sense to me (as expected), but I noted down anything that seemed like it might be relevant.

In Advanced Chipset Features:
OnChip Sound is set to Disable (other option is Auto)

In Integrated Peripherals:
OnChip IDE Channel10 Enabled
OnChip IDE Channel11 Enabled
Onboard Legacy Audio Enabled
SoundBlaster Enabled
SB I/O Base Address 220H
SB IRQ Select IRQ5
SB DMA Select DMA1
MPU 401 Disabled
MPU 401 I/O Address 330-333H

KdjaCL

Have you enabled it in the C media Mixer

Run Windows Update there is a few driver updates for that (7 since i got mine)

Surround works fine for me with the 5.1 c media.
There is an option in the mixer to turn it on.

c media rocks (yah i say that a lot)

kdjac

pickarooney

Where do I get (access to) C Media Mixer? I'll be damned if I don't get surround sound by EOB!

pickarooney

Ah, whaddayaknow, the Windows Update had Cmixer in there. One selected tick-box later and we're in business!
Thanks a million for the help, guys

whosurpaddy

quick question lads with 5.1 sound r u actually meant to ever get sound from the center speaker r is it just there for when something extra is called for?. ive just recently got a 5.1 system & a creative sb live card. its all installed correctly but i never seem to actually hear anythin from the fifth speaker.

KdjaCL

Dialogue is supposed to come from the centre speaker.

With echos os it in L and R speaker.


If its C media make sure its configured right there is a funky set up (woofer and center in same port).

Also make sure its volume is turned up.

Run one of the 5.1 tests found on some DVDs (toy Story has it).


kdjac