help! can't get 5.1 working, rear speakers don't work

Vesper8

Senior member
Apr 29, 2005
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Hello everyone. I just built two PCs. one has a audigy 2 zs and the other one only uses the a8n-e onboard sound card.

I set up my logitech X-530s and tested them on my audigy system and the surround sound works fine. I only plug in the green/orange/black audio cables (the only ones that come with the X-530s) and every speaker sounds well.

When I take those 3 cables and plug them into my other system however, only the front 2 and middle speakers work. The rear speakers don't work at all. I installed the latest realtek drivers from Asus.

Any tips on getting surround sound to work on my a8n-e onboard card? It says it supports it
 

Vesper8

Senior member
Apr 29, 2005
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ok.. btw the middle speaker doesn't work either, neither does the sub, basically only the two front speakers work.

in control panel, sound settings, advanced, and speaker setup it's set as 5.1 surround sound speakers.

as for going into the realtek driver.. the only way I know to do this is to click on the 'sound effect manager' in control panel. Once in there the only setting I found that refers to what I'm looking for is when I click on 'speaker configuration' and here I've chosen the 6 speaker setup.

When I run a test, only the two front speakers work.

How do I set the the driver settings to 5.1 ? I looked in device manager but couldn't find this switch.
 

MobiusPizza

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Apr 23, 2004
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werid. Subs are suppose to work regardless of what the soundcard is, it just makes the lower frequency sound spectrum automatically. Check your volume settings.
 

Vesper8

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Apr 29, 2005
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if I go into the sound setting and click on advanced. I'm able to enable volume sliders for 'rear, sub, front, side' etc. But they are all greyed out.

Question.. the a8n-e sound card claims to support up to 8 channels. does that mean it will only work if you connect the speakers directly to the sound ports? Would it also work with a speaker system such as the X-530 where all the speakers connect to the sub except for one speaker that acts as a connection to/from the sub and to the computer?

and yes btw.. the sub seems to be working. but the middle and two rear speakers aren't.
 

MobiusPizza

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Apr 23, 2004
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Well for every x.1 (2.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1) setups, 2-3 cables link the computer to sub. And the sub act as a hub to connect the speakers. That's normal.

If the settings are greyed out it must be something wrong in the software department. Try updating driver and check other settings, and seek help from manuals, faqs and tech support
 

Ze Mad Doktor

Banned
Dec 9, 2004
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Just out of curiousity.... What are you using to test the speakers? Might it be a .wav or .mp3 file? If so, they are only 2 channel. It plays surround on the Audigy because Creative uses cloning on their sound cards. Most other sound cards do not have this feature.

When I set up this Shuttle system I am on now I had the same problem. My old system had an SB Live! in it and when I hooked up the speakers to the new one I could only get my mp3s to play on the front two speakers. I did a little research and found out about the Creative Labs cloning thing.

It's pretty gay overall. To me that seems like a feature that should be near the top of every list for sound cards but I think only Creative really does it.
 

Ze Mad Doktor

Banned
Dec 9, 2004
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In fact, I don't know which onboard sound by Realtek you have but my Shuttle SN95G5 also uses Realtek for the onboard audio so I am almost certain you are looking at the same problem I was.

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news..... If you have a Creative card you might want to disable the onboard audio and install it
 

MobiusPizza

Platinum Member
Apr 23, 2004
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Originally posted by: Ze Mad Doktor
Just out of curiousity.... What are you using to test the speakers? Might it be a .wav or .mp3 file? If so, they are only 2 channel. It plays surround on the Audigy because Creative uses cloning on their sound cards. Most other sound cards do not have this feature.

Ah good point. Creative has CMSS.

However since he said the volume controls for rear/front speakers are disabled it is more likely to be software issue.
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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First of all, you should have Front/Line-Out (Green), Center (Orange), Rear (Black), Side (White), Line-In (Blue), and Microphone (Red) for analog connections on your motherboard.

2.0/2.1 systems use Front (Line-Out)
4.1 systems use Front, Rear.
5.1 systems use Front, Center, and Rear.
7.1 systems use Front, Center, Rear, and Side.

Make sure you're properly connected, Front to Green, Center to Orange, Rear to Black.

After that, make sure you have the latest nForce 4 standalone drivers (which has the audio driver for Realtek ALC850 in it)

In your nVidia Mixer (Start -> Programs -> nVidia Corporation -> NvMixer, click the second tab on the bottom of the window for the Speaker selection window. Select 5.1 in the drop down box.

Then go into the Windows speaker settings, and make sure it matches 5.1 surround sound.

IN programs like media players and Winamp, you MUST select Enable Hardware Acceleration in order to hear audio on all channels.

Tell me if you have a problem with this advice.
 

Ze Mad Doktor

Banned
Dec 9, 2004
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NM just read you were using the speaker test wizard and not getting sound... You said you were using the latest drivers from Asus, why don't you try getting the newest ones directly from Realtek, they are dated 6/2/05 so Asus probably has not implemented them yet.
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: Ze Mad Doktor
Just out of curiousity.... What are you using to test the speakers? Might it be a .wav or .mp3 file? If so, they are only 2 channel. It plays surround on the Audigy because Creative uses cloning on their sound cards. Most other sound cards do not have this feature.

When I set up this Shuttle system I am on now I had the same problem. My old system had an SB Live! in it and when I hooked up the speakers to the new one I could only get my mp3s to play on the front two speakers. I did a little research and found out about the Creative Labs cloning thing.

It's pretty gay overall. To me that seems like a feature that should be near the top of every list for sound cards but I think only Creative really does it.

All sound cards that have surround capability will clone front to rear if you ask them to. On the Realtek ALC850, for example, (the nVidia nForce 4 standard sound chip) you can enable this in the Mixer, speaker settings, and then Surround settings. You can either clone or delay (which gives the effect of seperated channels)

You must enable hardware acceleration in programs like Winamp for you to hear it.

EDIT: You don't need to do the surround settings.. I think thats for encoding, not decoding. Just go into your media player settings and enable hardware acceleration if you can.
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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I set mine to clone, any mp3 I play in winamp, etc, plays on all channels for me. Using ALC850. :)

EDIT: I did the same on my old ALC650 too, so it's definately not a new thing.
 

Ze Mad Doktor

Banned
Dec 9, 2004
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Hey thanks Continuity. Now I have surround on my mp3 again. I didn't know about the hardware acceleration in winamp and whoever told me what I posted never said anything about that.
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: Ze Mad Doktor
Hey thanks Continuity. Now I have surround on my mp3 again. I didn't know about the hardware acceleration in winamp and whoever told me what I posted never said anything about that.

No problem. :)

I think most sound chips do cloning decoding by default, but some programs don't use hardware accelerated audio by default, like Winamp.

It should be better all around now. :beer:
 

Ze Mad Doktor

Banned
Dec 9, 2004
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That's weird though, Creative cards must somehow force it then because I never had to enable it to get surround with my SB Live!
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: Ze Mad Doktor
That's weird though, Creative cards must somehow force it then because I never had to enable it to get surround with my SB Live!

What's even more odd is I needed to set the Winamp settings for my Sound Blaster Live! 7.1 24-bit chip that came with the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI. :Q

Maybe Creative is just weird. :p
 

Vesper8

Senior member
Apr 29, 2005
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thanks SOO much guys.. your input is priceless. I enabled hardware acceleration in Winamp and now the middle speaker works, the rear ones still don't work but I just got home and I got plenty of other things to try out that you listed above. I'm sure it'll work when I'm done doing all the recommendations you gave me.

Thanks!!!