The Lord Save Us From SB Live!! (help!)

[johnnyboy]

Alright, so for the past few months I've been getting no sound out of my center Z-640 speaker, something that I attributed to my Sound Blaster Live and until recently had risen above. Tonight I was bored, so I strolled on over to Creative's site to see if they had any new drivers that would fix the problem. They had a couple of drivers that I don't remember getting, so I downloaded and installed them. Now I have no sound at all, unless I turn my Z-640s ALL THE WAY UP (something that would usually strike a man deaf), and even then it's just a feeble sound blanketed by heavy, heavy static. I even tried just reinstalling the sound card, but that's not working at all either (uninstalled drivers, card, then rebooted with "new" card in the case and Windows didn't even recognize that there was new hardware).

The way this usually goes is that I work on the problem into the night, and find a solution before I can come back on and look for a reply, but even still--please help!!
-johnnyboy

 

[marshahu]

OK, this may sound stupid but have u tried pluggin ur speakers into another 5.1 sound card in another computer. If the centre speaker dont work in that other PC than your centre speaker must be connected wrongly or the set u have is simply faulty. However if like u suggest the problem is down to the sound card, do the usual checks. Go into the creative speaker settings (this maybe different for Live! cards, Audigy 2 has a utility where you can configure your speaker setup and chose you speaker) and check that you have selected 5.1 as your speakers. Then check that this is synchronised with the control panel speaker options, if not set accordingly. Is you Live! card the 5.1 version, as you didnt specify, cos if not then u know your solution - buy a bloody 5.1 card!LOL!

PC Spec: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ running at 1.25ghz, ECS K7S5A Motherboard, 768MB SDRAM PC133, Sparkle nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 32MB AGP Graphics Card, Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 6.1, Windows Me

 

[Oracle]

Your speakers are 5.1 analog.
The SB Live! doesn't support 5.1
Get at least an SB Live!5.1

 

[johnnyboy]

Alright, sorry for not specifying before: it is indeed Live! 5.1 (or at least it says so on the CD that came with it, and I'm pretty sure I remember specifically getting the 5.1 card). What's weird is that during Windows start-up, the EAX driver window pops up, a little tune plays, and during that tune sound comes out of the center speaker. But for my mp3's and such (including games), there is no sound for the center speaker. Well, I'm getting a new sound card soon anyway, but thanks for all of your input!

 

[Oracle]

It may be a driver problem or a bad connection.
Reinstall the drivers completely (make sure the old ones are completely removed first).
Make sure your wires are connected into the right inputs.

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[TeeTewl]

Sayeth the Lord...getteth a mothereth board with Nvidia chipset and buyeth sound cards no more

...then we get on our knees and pray, we don't get fooled again..."The Who" said that

 

[jammydodger]

Thats because MP3 files do not store the extra data needed to play 5.1 channel sound. If you use the creative media center that came with your sound card you can enable CMSS which merges to the left and right channels to create a center channel.

The .AC3 format is the only music format I know of that supports 5.1. That and DVD's. Do some research before buying a 5.1 set of speakers.

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