rear speakers don't work anymore

[stringcheeseincident]

i bought the logitech z640 5.1 speaker set up when i first got my computer together about a year and a half ago. for the past couple months i'd only been using the front speakers, subwoofer, and the center channel. we moved to a new house a week or 2 ago and i decided to set up the rear speakers again. i have everything hooked up in the back of the subwoofer correctly, i only get a little bit of static out of the rear speakers.

i was originally using onboard sound on my abit nf7-s, i was tweaking the nvidia audio control panel to no end, i couldn't get it working at all. i tried swapping the plugs where they connect to the motherboard and realized that if i plugged the rear speaker connection into where the front speakers go, i could get sound through the speakers for once. however, then no sound was coming out of the front speakers from the connection for the rear channels and my problem was still at hand. this lead me to beleive that perhaps the rear connection on my motherboard was messed up.

i just bought a turtle beach santa cruz sound card, threw it in my rig and tried to get this crap set up, still running into the exact same problem. i have the center and front channels working fine, i can only get some weak static through the rear speakers. what should i do?

 

[stringcheeseincident]

anyone?

 

[Mogadon]

I was using logitech 5.1 speakers on an abit nf7-s(rev.2) before i picked up a sound card. I found that the speaker sockets on the mobo were marked wrong so i went into the speaker setup utility where you can test each speaker individually and swapped the speaker plugs around in the mobo until the correct speaker was playing when i hit the corresponding image on screen. After I did that the surround sound worked fine.

 

[VigilanteCS]

I had Z640s....my friend had them too. His broke, he called logitech and they sent him some new X530's free without returning the z640s to them. Mine worked fine, but I tried and I got myself a pair of free x530s!

Call Logitech.

 

[stringcheeseincident]

haha, sounds like a sweet deal, i'll definitely try that out. thanks man.

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i emailed logitech and they gave me the stereotypical customer service reply - telling me to do everything i already mentioned i've tried, linking to articles on the site, etc...basically not being any help at all. i'd call them up and try to score a new set of speakers, but i realized those X-530s can't hang off anything; in my current set up i have all my speakers hanging. perhaps i'll give it a shot for another 5.1 set up anyways.

i've come to realize the speakers work fine, its a problem with either the software or hardware. i climbed underneath my desk and began swapping out all the plugs in the santa cruz, i've realized the port for the front speakers is the only one actually putting sound out. i can plug either the front, rear, or center speaker(s) into the jack for the front speakers, and they all work fine, individually. however the ports for center and rear speakers do not work with anything. at first you'd think this is a problem with the santa cruz, but alas, its not.

i reenabled my onboard sound and tried the same thing: same problem. whaddafuk's going on, mang? all the software settings for either the santa cruz or onboard sound is set to be running at 5.1, winamp shows the output is set to be 5.1, but i ain't gettin no 5.1! anyone have any ideas that could lead me on the right path? thanks.

 

[angstsoldat]

!! you can just call them and tell them those speakers stopped working ? how do you describe the problems with them? I think I have the Z640s as well.. the subwoofer doesnt make any noise

 

[stringcheeseincident]

thats the thing, i just realized its not a problem with the speakers, all the speakers work when i run audio through them. i just hooked them up to my mp3 player and it works fine. its that the santa cruz card and my onboard sound won't run audio through anything but the front speakers. i just emailed turtle beach support and hopefully they can help.

 

[angstsoldat]

Originally posted by: stringcheeseincident
thats the thing, i just realized its not a problem with the speakers, all the speakers work when i run audio through them. i just hooked them up to my mp3 player and it works fine. its that the santa cruz card and my onboard sound won't run audio through anything but the front speakers. i just emailed turtle beach support and hopefully they can help.

Get an Audigy2?

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i just bought a santa cruz. anyone with actual help looking to share?

 

[JBird7986]

VigilanteCS...isn't that technically stealing?

Stringcheese: I'd try messing with the output connections from your computer. I put mine in the color coded slots on my computer and they didn't work out. I reorganized them and ran another test and they worked fine.

 

[Jeff7]

A few things with my NF7-S and Z-640's:
Yes, as mentioned, the rear and center plugs on the motherboard are color coded backwards.

And, the Matrix button on the Center speaker - make sure it's not pressed in.

Finally, what program(s) are you using to try to get sound out of the rear speakers?
If Winamp, go to Preferences -> Output, and be sure to use the Directsound plugin. Configure it, and enable hardware acceleration.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Did you try something that's more than two channel to check the speakers?

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i realized i could listen to mp3s via playing them in quicktime through firefox, and the 5.1 was working fine. came into this thread and saw Jeff's suggestion to enable hardware acceleration. enabled it, now everything works fine. thanks guys/