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

Anonymous

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.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

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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49 additional answers

Anonymous

2012-10-14T08:58:21+00:00

[ not directed at BB - just general comments ] -

Well there you go. Simple as playing with the settings in the control panel for whichever type of

audio your system uses.

Mathivanank's set up method is spot on.

I'll join the chorus of 'never had a sound problem'. Well lie. I did have a Realtek sound chip die

on a motherboard about six years ago, and yes I have been known to get my output settings muddled, but I've never had a sound issue that was a fault of Windows.

There are still a lot of stereo sound sources that only use the front speakers. Even with XP

you had to enable a setting to use the rear speakers on stereo sound

( with various terms as outlined in earlier posts)

Early on in this ancient thread there was a poster with a Gigabyte motherboard insisting his issues

were with Windows. I have the same model mobo and it hasn't missed a beat (pun :) ).

I was also running Win7 when this thread began.

And... When did speakers start being coded for Windows ? Bad leads more likely.

.
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Anonymous

2012-10-14T03:45:22+00:00

Open your Realtek HD Audio Manager, select the Speakers tab, select the Sound Effects sub tab, and set your environment to "Room". It's quite retarded to have to do it this way, but it works, and it's the only true working solution I've found that will work for everyone.

THANK YOU, after hours of searching I found your ''SET ENVIRONMENT TO ROOM" solution to work for "NO REAR SOUND WIN 7"! I was very close buying a sound card and shutting off onboard sound.
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Anonymous

2012-10-10T21:48:43+00:00

ok, as far as I am concerned I'm not the only one around that has the issue of his/her 5.1 speakers working as 2 channel/stereo or producing sound only from the front two speakers.

I've spent like 12 hours trying to solve this, so here's my problem.

I am using the Asus Xonar D1 Audio Card with the latest drivers for Windows 7 64 bit and my 5.1 Edfier DA5000 Pro all of a sudden started to produce sound only from the front speakers, although it passes all the tests in Sound properties.

Don't bother with the speaker fill option because I don't even have that option.

Programs like foobar 2000 work like a charm and play surround 5.1 but when trying to watch a youtube video for example the problem remains.

NOTE that it used to work fine until one boot changed it all.

so.... any suggestions? I'm half dead by now anyway..
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Anonymous

2012-08-16T09:20:38+00:00

I have creative 5.1 inspire m5300 speaker system. The 5.1 speaker system does not function properly, out of 5 speakers and a subwoofer only 2 Front Speakers and subwoofer is producing sound. there is no sound in remaining three speakers( 1 middle and 2 Rear speakers) by the way i am using windows 7. So can anyone please give me a soltuion on how to configure my speakers?
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