5.1 Surround Sound speaker system not working in Windows 7 Professional 64bit edition

Anonymous
2010-03-21T05:06:14+00:00

My problem is pretty much the same as other users who can't get their surround sound speaker system to function properly in Windows 7.

I have a subwoofer and 5 speakers (2 for front, 2 for rear, 1 for center).  Connection to the on-board RealTek HD Audio is simple, orange for the subwoofer, green for front and black for rear.

Testing the sound in the RealTek HD Audio Manager and Control Panel->Sound windows produces a sound on all channels at the same time, which is the desired setup.

However different applications use different channels.  IE and Firefox uses the front channels, VLC/MediaPlayer uses the rear.  3D games (ie WoW) uses all channels.  In each case the subwoofer doesn't work.

I have already tried downloading the latest drivers from the motherboard manufacturers website (Gigabyte).  I even tried the RealTek provided drivers (even though on RealTek's website that is NOT recommended).  I have tried connecting the subwoofer connectors to different jacks (reversed black and green).

I have experimented with the settings in the RealTek HD Audio Manager and Control Panel->Sound windows.  Nothing works.

These exact same subwoofer and speakers worked perfectly fine in Windows XP.

I have 2 questions:

a) Has anyone resolved their 5.1 & Windows 7 problem doing something I haven't tried yet?

b) When is Microsoft going to take this problem seriously?  All of the Microsoft provided answers just repeats what everyone else

has already tried.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2013-04-13T14:42:48+00:00

First unplug 3 cable (orange, green and black)  then Go to control panel - Hardware and sound - Real tek HD audio manager - tick center, subwoofer and rear pair,  front left and right  and speaker fill

Then click  Device advance settings.

select  "make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" and give ok

The plug all the three pin one by one and  select proper option in the popup windows. 

thats all.

 

You didn't give me enough information to get this working.   My system runs Win 7 X64 Home Premium.   When I select 5.1 sound as the capability the side speakers of my Logitech x550's are not recognized.  If I select 7.1, which is the chipset capacity of my Realtek chip, I can get the two outside speakers enabled as "rear" speakers. and can push test tones to each of the four surrounding speakers and to the center/bass combination via the Realtek driver.   

As far as the "make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" is concerned... I can't find this option.  There are at least two providers of "control interfaces" active on my system.  One is provided by RealTek, the other by Microsoft.  The paths to these interfaces is circuitous and confusing, to say the least. 

IMHO some compromises are in order.  I've got my Pandora One stream playing acceptably in my small study.  Many of the source sounds streamed for me are recorded in stereo, or even mono, so I find myself hitting the "matrix" button on my Logitech X550 control fairly frequently.  Occasionally a newer piece is delivered which actually sounds Ok without the "matrix" decoder. 

What I would really like to be able to do is to "reconfigure on the fly" between the built in USB speaker bar on my Acer Z3731 "All in One" system and my external Logitech X550's with the capacity for 5.1 "surround sound" presentation via three wires.  When I try your procedure, I don't get separate recognition of each wire as it is plugged in and often end up with 2.1 sound being pushed out to my 5.1 external speakers because somehow Microsoft has re-recognized the built in USB based sound bar instead of the three rear wires plugged into the jacks provided by the system manufacturer.

If there ever were separate "Speakers" and "Realtek" icons displayed in the user interfaces on my system, the speakers are long gone and I can't get them back.  All I see is the Realtek driver.  I would like to see two different "Speakers" Icons I could label "Built-in 2.1" and "External 5.1" in addition to the Realtek driver.  How do I get these to reappear?

Can anyone suggest a way to have two different sets of "speakers" recognized and identified within the Microsoft UI in addition to the Realtec driver?  If I could get this done, I believe the driver would let me "set as default" one or the other speaker set, and I'd have "software switching" capable of letting me choose whether the external speakers or the built in sound bar delivers the sound.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-07-01T16:30:47+00:00

    Guys i found a way for W7:

    Go Control Panel->Hardware and Sounds->Sound->Speakers->Dolby and click Dolby prologic IIx (natural bass is optional), this option is not included in realteck management tool.

    this seems to be the season why the sound was not forwarded to 5.1 and only to front speakers.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-04-29T15:45:44+00:00

    Its true that people with 5.1 speaker problems solve them by just turning the settings to 7.1 .

    What happens in my case?  I have 7.1 speakers and they only thing thats working are the front speakers.

    Rear and side are just a mess with sound.

    So please solve this bug cause YES in my country many people have same problems. Dont have to mention that Im using the latest creative drivers..

    thnx in advance

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-04-06T14:49:38+00:00

    Hi all.

    I have the exact same issue. So do you many others. I've upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 and lost 5.1 surround sound.

    I use Logitech Z-5500. Have a Gigabyte EX58 motherboard with built in Realtek HD Audio.

    Connecting Logitech speaker system via SPDIF (optical or coaxil) simply will not produce true 5.1 surround sound (only stereo).  Also Windows 7 fails to dectect any speakers (according to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Sound). Speakers remain greyed out. Yet stereo sound is heard.

    Connecting Logitech speakers via 3 input jacks helps and unlocks speaker detection. But many of the speaker channel assignments are incorrect.

    I have installed correctly and using the latest Realtek HD drivers for Windows 7. 

    I agree with the comments of others and believe this is a Windows 7 issue. This is because all of my 50 plus installed games detected and played true 5.1 surround sound when on a Windows XP system.  But since simply upgrading to Windows 7 now many games such as Half Life 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc will not detect or allow 5.1 to operate.

    This is a Windows 7 issue. 

    Can a Windows support staff member please test this issue by simply installing Windows 7 on a Gigabyte EX58 motherboard system with Logitech Z-5500 speaker system and connect Logitech speaker control panel via Coaxial or Optical or 3 audio jacks.

    Kind regards,

    Mark B.

    This is a peer to peer support forum. If you want to talk to MS support staff you'll need to contact them directly unless one of them happens to be browsing the forums and stumbles on your post.

    IIRC, SPDIF output is only 2 channels. Multiple sound tracks would be encoded within the digital signal. The speaker system or digital amplifier extracts the available audio tracks from the digital stream. Windows only differentiates between analog speaker connections and digital output. An AC3 stream might contain 5.1 channel sound but unless 5.1 channel output is enabled in the AC3 filter you'll only get stereo, or whatever output level has been enabled instead fo 5.1.  I don't use digital output but can say that the driver downloaded from Realtek does assign the analog speaker/microphone jacks correctly (MS driver does not). What some people don't realize is that various CODECs, filters, media players and even speaker systems have potentially conflicting multi channel synthesizing schemes. For example, AC3 real 5.1 multichannel output can conflict with Logitech's synthesized 5.1 channel -matrix- output, wiping out the center and back-channel sound completely. You can use one or the other but not both at the same time. Some media players with self contained CODEC support can generate the same sort of audio conflicts.  Similarly the Realtek low frequency crossover utility should not be enabled at the same time as similar features within 3rd party software or audio filters.

     Another consideration, which pertains to games, is that Windows support for one of the major 3rd party audio formats for multi-channel in-game sound was dropped when Windows Vista was released. Any legacy games using that sound format would revert to 2 channel sound in both Vista and Windows 7.  From one of Creative's web pages:

    "The removal of the audio hardware abstraction layer from Windows Vista will compromise audio in legacy game titles that use EAX or DirectSound3D (DS3D), usually resulting in stereo output without any effects."

    The same applies to Windows 7. Creative released a workaround utility for their soundcards:

    http://en.europe.creative.com/corporate/pressroom/releases/detail.asp?rtype=4&ref=12682

    Realtek also posted a patch (3dsoundback) to re-enable 3d sound in Vista. I couldn't get the patch to work in my Windows 7.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-04-05T12:27:25+00:00

    Hi all.

    I have the exact same issue. So do you many others. I've upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 and lost 5.1 surround sound.

    I use Logitech Z-5500. Have a Gigabyte EX58 motherboard with built in Realtek HD Audio.

    Connecting Logitech speaker system via SPDIF (optical or coaxil) simply will not produce true 5.1 surround sound (only stereo).  Also Windows 7 fails to dectect any speakers (according to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Sound). Speakers remain greyed out. Yet stereo sound is heard.

    Connecting Logitech speakers via 3 input jacks helps and unlocks speaker detection. But many of the speaker channel assignments are incorrect.

    I have installed correctly and using the latest Realtek HD drivers for Windows 7. 

    I agree with the comments of others and believe this is a Windows 7 issue. This is because all of my 50 plus installed games detected and played true 5.1 surround sound when on a Windows XP system.  But since simply upgrading to Windows 7 now many games such as Half Life 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc will not detect or allow 5.1 to operate.

    This is a Windows 7 issue. 

    Can a Windows support staff member please test this issue by simply installing Windows 7 on a Gigabyte EX58 motherboard system with Logitech Z-5500 speaker system and connect Logitech speaker control panel via Coaxial or Optical or 3 audio jacks.

    Kind regards,

    Mark B.

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