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
    2013-05-02T18:04:15+00:00

    Hey friend i finally found the solution of this problem, go to sound card setting and disable speakers via properties and remove all the speakers plugged in pc, then open realtek it says device is disabled and then plugin 3.5 mm jack of speakers in the jack other then green one, realtek driver will ask u questions like rear speaker and many more choose rear speakers and now plugin other 3.5 mm jack of speaker and voila done u will get independent sound from each rear and front speaker.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-04-15T05:27:22+00:00

    I didn't expect you to still be responding to this link.

    I suppose you have found the  - "make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" by now.

    If not, it is at the top right corner of the Realtek Sound Manager in Device Advanced Settings

    The main function of this is to allow for a setup option for your headphones (or other two channel

    pre-amp/speakers from the front panel ?)  vs using the same setup as the speakers use, but only

    displays when the headphones are plugged in.

    I assume what you refer to as 'matrix' on your system is called Speaker Fill on the home-build PC's

    using Realtek that I've dealt with.

    "In general, matching up the color coding of the wires with the color coding of the jacks makes the most likely sense. "

    • A key point to an easy setup.  I've only  used 5.1 , but on home-built PC's I've not found much difference  with Realtek audio over the years, except for changes to the drivers and setup page layout, but Realtek does recommend getting drivers from the motherboard mfg because they only provide a

    basic driver, as does MS with Windows, so to get any benefit from additional tweaks  made by the motherboard mfg it is best to get drivers from them.

    -The same would apply doubly with laptops and OEM PC mfg's  as they do like to stuff around with things, to make them 'unique' (?) to their mfg.

    "By the time you get Microsoft involved, things are even more complex."

    -I see it the other way around. Monopoly$oft supplies a basic driver, for a basic system setup, and we

    choose to use more complex systems which require a  driver from the mfg of the hardware/peripheral

    to get the full benefit of that hardware/peripheral.

    Fair enough. Windows is already bloated enough without having drivers for every hardware configuration under the sun.

    .

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-04-14T18:19:18+00:00

    A new thread would have been better ...

               

    @BpssDweebe I chose this thread because it had the most comprehensive detail on this issue of any I've found.  Starting over doesn't compute for me.  I've "tried everything" and have evolve a solution which satisfies me, but which is still technically "not quite right" based on what I know about the specifications of the devices I own.

    @chermesh  - The Realtek chipsets vary considerably from system to system.  The manufacturers put more or less external jacks on the backs of their boxes depending on the system.  In general, matching up the color coding of the wires with the color coding of the jacks makes the most likely sense.   I got it "right" the first time when I had my Logitech X530's hooked up to a now obsolete Acerpower-FH desktop with an older Realtec chipset and drivers. 

    Getting the "most current" drivers proved to be a mistake which I'm not able to correct easily.  Acer puts drivers on their web site which don't always handle things correctly for their own systems, especially in my case where Microsoft has issued over 240 'Patches' since they shipped their initial configuration.   Realtek doesn't know how Acer wired their chipset into the case, or even what chip manufacturer made the processor that drives their logic.  By the time you get Microsoft involved, things are even more complex.

    Once you have everything plugged in and recognized, you can use the RealTek driver to generate test tones and in my driver display the attributes that the driver has assigned to the wire just plugged into each jack.  (Right click on the jack in their UI.)  The driver for my 7.1 capable chipset downloaded from the international Realtek download site recognizes speakers I would classify as "side" speakers in a 5.1 configuration as "rear" speakers and will only properly separate them if I set things to 7.1 where "rear" speakers are properly recognized.

    My speaker set, the Logitech X530 series uses one wire for woofer and center, a second for left and right side and the third for left and right rear.  In "Matrix" mode, it takes a 2.1 or Stereo source sound and spreads it out across the "side" and "rear" speakers giving more "depth" to the playback.  I find this great for my Pandora One subscription since most of the tracks I listen to are mono or stereo source tracks.  When I get a "newer" track, sometimes turning off the "Matrix" decoder actually improves the playback quality.

    If I want to listen to HD 7.1 sound, for example on a Blu Ray Movie soundtrack, I don't use my desktop computer as the output device.  I've got 40" and 56" HD TV's with better speaker systems than the one I'm trying to get working optimally with my Acer Z3731 All-in-One desktop system.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-04-14T06:27:04+00:00

    A new thread would have been better as you may have attracted more respondents, and the last

    reply was almost a year ago.

    You also need to go into more detail about your particular problem. What speaker setup you

    are wanting to use. What jacks you are using for each set of speakers, and what options you

    have selected in the Realtek Sound Manager.

    Four cables vs three is not instructive.

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