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

2011-02-15T06:12:48+00:00
So here is my two cents on this subject.

I recently have been experimenting with my 5.1 surround sound system (Diamond XS51) on my Windows 7 Professional 32 bit and have come to the following conclusions:
1. Windows 7 does support 5.1 which is why when you test the speakers in the speaker configuration dialog box they all seem to work
2. The applications you are trying to use do not fill stereo signal to the 5.1 sound system.
a. Your media players read the MP3s and videos as stereo and therefore output them in stereo which happens to be only the center or front channels depending on your configuration. My guess is that if you played a surround sound DVD you would experience the full 5.1 from your system. Zune, Media Player, Media Center, and all other software that I have experience this problem.

b. I was able to partially solve this problem in Foobar2000 by enabling the plug-in that converts the stereo to 4 channels before playing. This allows the computer to send signal to my other speakers. I am not sure if similar plug-ins exist for the other afore mentioned applications.

Therefore 3) The problem lies with the software you are using and not Windows and they should be the ones you contact for a solution.

Obviously you should get the latest drivers for your devices and see if that solves your problem.

I do not claim to know everything about this problem and I can only offer what I have observed from my own experience.
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Anonymous

2010-11-15T19:28:24+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.

Hi Tudor,

I'm struggling with same problem and failed to find a solution. I trued yours, but stopped with "Speakers". Found no way to continue with your "Dolby and click Dolby prologic IIx (natural bass is optional)".

Can you provide a more detailed explanation how to reach the "Dolby" option?
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Anonymous

2010-09-24T08:12:14+00:00

This worked for me...finally!

In Windows 7 Control Panel => Speakers Properties => Enhancements: I checked both 1) Speaker Fill and 2) Loudness Equalization and it played sound in all 6 speakers.

The quality obviously is not as good as when playing a DVD with a 5.1 sound track but at least now I can get simple mp3's and pandora radio to play in all 6 speakers which was the reason I purchased the set in the first place.

Good luck,

Jim
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Anonymous

2010-09-24T07:16:44+00:00

So basically the only solution anyone has found is to return the speaker system that is not working and buy a Creative INSPIRE T6160?
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