5.1 sound isn't working

[elonin]

I apologize for posting this under an incorrect sub forum, but am not sure where this belongs. I'm using 5.1 speakers with the integrated sound that comes with the Gigabyte z77x-d3h motherboard. I have found when recently playing computer games that only my back channel is working, which was confirmed by going into configure sound and only the rear speakers worked when the test button was pushed.

Each of the four speakers were confirmed to work by swapping out the cords into the sub-woofer slot for rear left. And by swapping out the input cables into my laptop's headphones jack I found that the center speaker and sub-woofer put out sound.

I'm able to get sound from the pc by plugging in my headphones through the headphones jack in the front of the case, as well as from my TV through the HDMI port on my video card.

During previous installs these speakers did work though this board's integrated sound.

 

[i7Baby]

What make and model speaker system? Has it got spdif input (optical)?

How many 3.5mm jacks come from it?

 

[i7Baby]

Have you used your (Realtek) Audio manager to set up 5.1 instead of the default 2.0?

 

[elonin]

The speakers are logitek z-640.

Have installed the HD realtek codec from this site (turned up first in a google search). There is no realtek audio manager that installed with the driver. I did have it set up as 5.1 from the windows audio manager.

Edit: I forgot to answer about the Spdif optical port. Yes there is a optical port in but I don't have that on my speakers

 

[i7Baby]

Have you got the right plugs from the 640 into the right plugs in your pc? They should be color matched.

 

[elonin]

BTW thanks i7Baby. The speakers have 3 input cables (orange, green, black) and are color matched to the onboard sound. At this point I'm thinking that the front channel cable is bad since that also failed on the laptop.

The thing that I don't understand is in the past when this setup worked (different installs of the OS) with the same bios disk for audio drivers and they didn't load correctly this time. (as a coincidence i had to manually uninstall some generic usb 3 drivers in order to load the drivers for my board.)

edit: also isn't the spdif input only for TV's?

 

[i7Baby]

some speaker systems use optical input. usually home theater type sets

If you plug front channel speakers into rear channel pc any output?

Do your speakers work off another pc?

 

[elonin]

I don't have another pc to test with other than the laptop. I switched the front and back channel cords and the front now works and the rear channel doesn't.

 

[i7Baby]

Sure you've got it set up for 5.1 on the pc?

Go into Control Panel, Hardware and Sound. There should be a Realtek HD Audio Manager. Use it to set up 5.1