help with 5.1 please

[renier8]

Hi

I have an on board sound card that supports up to 7.1 sound. I HAD an old creative 4.1 speaker setup. All my audio, weather games or music played through all 4 channels, and the sub.

Recently I bought a new set op speakers, a Genius 5.1 thing.

When I connect it, and test it with the motherboard sound utility, it gives me a perfect audio signal to each of the 6 speakers. However, anything else, including games and mp3's plays only through what seems to be the front pair. Absolutely no base or surround sound.

Now I know not all games and music supports 5.1, but neither do they support the 4.1 that I had, and yet I heard sound on all of them.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Renier

[sabianq]

your 4.1 system was not really a true surround system most of them just routed signal to 2 other channels and a low pass to a sub channel. but that is neither here nor there.
there has to be a setting somewhere that lets you route 2 channel (stereo) through all 6 channels.
you are correct in the fact that mp3's are not 6 channel. and i dont know of any mp3 encoding that is lets you encode anything in 6 channel's
movies in dvd format, some of them are encoded in 6 channel, and a few games are too.
look to your softwhere manual to help you solve this connundrum.


welcome to the forum

[renier8]

Thanks for the help. The manual is really poor - it just tells you where to plug the cables in.

I cant find any setting in the soundcard software utility for this purpose.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Renier

[renier8]

Things are worse than I thought.

I just loaded a proper 5.1 DVD (star wars ep2), and I still get nothing from the sub or the surrounds - only the pair in front of me.

Yet, like I said - in the software utility of the soundcard, all 6 speakers responds correctly.

I am lost here if anyone wants to help please.

Renier