Rear and center speakers work during sound test but not otherwise

[I_WillB]

I have 5.1 Creative Surround sound for my computer and I'm running them through the on board sound card. When looking at the playback devices and doing the test everything works:Front, Center, Rear, and Bass. When I play something else with sound (music movie etc.) only the Front speakers and the Bass work. Its odd that the bass works but the center speaker does nothing since they are on the same audio jack. Any suggestions on the problem/possible solutions?

 

[lp231]

Surround sound only works if the music or movie was actually recorded in 5.1 surround sound. If not then, the other speakers won't have sound coming out from them.
Try this, go into control panel and set Windows audio speaker to 5.1.
In the sound card's audio manager, also set that to 5.1

If that does not work, download the latest sound drivers.
If you got a realtek, then go to www.realtek.com.tw and download the HD Audio drivers.
Open up Realtek audio manager, head into speaker configuration and enable virtual surround.

 

[smorizio]

control panel / hardware & sound / manage audio devices

click on the "speakers" icon

there should be a tab with your sound card on it, click on it

then click on the settings button
change from 2 speakers to 5.1

 

[I_WillB]

I had it set to 5.1 already but I figured out I needed to select one of the "enhancement" settings to Fill Speakers to convert the stereo sources to surround sound

 

[minitauros]

Something similar worked for me: on Windows 8.1, I opened my sound preferences, went to the "Advanced" tab (after right clicking --> properties) and clicked "Restore defaults".

 

[GraceBT]

Go to sound effects and select "room" and the select will use speaker fill
(make sure "Speaker Fill" is checked in the speaker configuration. Also make
sure that no speakers are checked unless you actually have them. Note
that the woofer in a three speaker sets is NOT a center speaker and
it is not a "subwoofer" either unless you are using digital output and
the speaker system supports that. For example I have 5.1 selected and
only the 2 front and 2 rear speakers.

73
-grace
nnnn
z

 

[vizerox]

control panel / hardware & sound / manage audio devices

click on the "speakers" icon

there should be a tab with your sound card on it, click on it

then click on the settings button
change from 2 speakers to 5.1

your method worked great. just bought some nice surround-sound desktop speakers and sub/center would not work! workng good now!

 

[beastygt]

Unplug rear speaker cable and replug it, it will register a new cable slot - select rear speaker.
I made a video if you are confused as this took me forever to find out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WeA-6-OIJQ&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MeettheTings

 

[oggmeista]

I just had the same trouble with my .5.1 creative audigy sound card....and Logitech z5500 sound system
I also have 5.1 headphones which i reguarly have problems with usually disconnecting them solves the problem, but not this time I basically changed every setting and no luck

then I tried reinstalling the sound card drivers.....


Bingo

 

[Rares1234]

So what i have experienced till now is this. On my end..it seems windows has "Stereo" inverted with "5.1 Surround". So basicaly try to configure your speakers as "Stereo" from windows sound settings and 5.1 will work. Also..if you have Xonar DX you should put the Audio Channel on "2 channels". And voila ...it's 5.1 sound ..in all your sattelites.

Note: Using WINDOWS 10 Pro. Hope this helps some people.