Why won't my Digital Sound work?

[Oifish]

I have a SBLive 5.1 card and logitech z640 speakers. I have the orange plung for digital sound plugged into the right spot on my card, but when i enable the option in windows(ME) for digital sound only, i don't hear anything. Please help

 

[Monoman]

do you have AC3 decode on or off? is the right Hrz selected(use 44 not 48) more info on the situation would be nice

good luck

Mitch

 

[Oifish]

Where do i find those options at? Sorry about the lack of info, sound settings / hardware is not my strong point.

 

[Auric]

AudioHQ, either in the Creative/Live folder or Control Panel.

 

[Pudgygiant]

Are z640's digital speakers? I.E. do they have a decoder built-in? I'm not trying to insult you, I seriously don't know.

 

[Oifish]

I'm guessing that they are. They have the orange on one of the plugs, and the instrucions for the speakers say that I can plug it into the digital port on the sound card. The AC-3 Decode is on, but I can't find a setting for the frequency in side of AudioHQ.

 

[Auric]

The frequency is of the sampling rate which should be found under the tab of the same name. The Decoder should be disabled, by selecting SPDIF pass-through.

 

[Oifish]

Ok, The AC-3 Decode is off. I went to AudioHQ then to speakers. Then inside of speakers i clicked advanced that brought up a menu wiht the AC-3 Decode and Bass Redirection. Those were the only two options. I didn't see any menu of tab for sampleing rate or option for SPDIF pass through.

 

[Auric]

Okay, if Decode is a toggle check box then unselecting it for off should be fine. You see, for Audigy there are radio buttons to select either Decode or SPDIF pass through. If the sampling rate is not configurable then it should be fine. As far as I recall the default is usually correct and is 48Hz so as to allow AC3 and PCM with DSP effects. You did not say where you enabled the digital sound option but that should be in the Surround Mixer somewhere. The speakers should probably be set to 2 as well, rather 5.1 as you might expect. If this does not help try a google search. Good luck!

 

[Woodchuck2000]

What cable are you using? Chances are that a normal phono won't work - you'll need a 50 Ohm cable to carry a S/PDIF signal under normal circumstances.

 

[Pariah]

but when i enable the option in windows(ME) for digital sound only,

The Windows option for digital audio is not related to digital out. The option either enables or disables red book audio from CD's being sent over the PCI bus instead of the analog cable out the back of the drive. In later Windows releases Microsoft better labled the option to make its purpose more clear.

The sampling rate for the Live cards is fixed at 48kHz and can't be changed.

If you're not getting any audio at all out of the digital out, the problem is not the AC3 settings. There really aren't any tricks to get digital audio to work, make sure it is enabled in the Creative Surround mixer and that the SPDIF is set to default in Device Controls in AudioHQ. If you still can't get it to work, just stick with analog.

 

[Accord99]

From what I can see of the Z-640, it has no digital input capabilities.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Accord99
From what I can see of the Z-640, it has no digital input capabilities.

You're right. Could have saved myself some time had I just looked at that. The Z-640's don't have a digital input, so stick with the analog.

 

[Auric]

LOL. They seemed so sure though, what with the orange plung and all.