5.1 systems on a PC

oh. well.

poo. wish i hadn't spent all that money on these XD well i suppose at least they look cool...now to work out what i did to make my sound go away completely. thanks anyway.
 
Ah, you have a pre-build? Do you know what the model name of the PC is then?

Alternatively, could you post up a screenshot of the mainboard tab, packard bell g5800 isn't giving me anything, unfortunately.
 
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If this is a modern PB iPower then it should come with 7.1 support on the motherboard (a PB model number would be useful if you can find it). However, this could be exclusively digital 7.1 and the analogue connections are only stereo.

Can you confirm the 3.5mm connections on the back of your PC? A motherboard with analogue 7.1 will have six individual 3.5mm plugs (orange, black, grey, blue, green and pink). Is that what you see, or have you only got the last three?

If you are limited to analogue stereo on the board, then your best bet is to drop in a cheap sound card. I would give this one a look.
 
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According to the famous high street PC vendor, there is support for 7.1 sound. WTF does that mean? That's about as useful as saying it has support for a CPU. Still, we all know how good PC World are.

That's terrible really. For what that cost, to not have 7.1 sound is rather lame. :/
 
well i work there so i didn't pay that price :P i did look into it and to build it myself wouldn't have been MUCH less than what i paid, plus having got it from work i have errr...benefits, if anything goes wrong.
 
oh. well ok, i've been meaning the one with the controls. i just assumed as it had the controls, it was the centre one. i should look at the back of the hub to see which it actually is.

front right!? (also why does it use a vga)

You are talking about the control box with the "matrix mode" and volume knob on.... this connects directly into the sub and controls all speakers... it doesn't connect directly to any individual one. Also it is not VGA, it just simply looks like one, absolutely nothing to do with video.

The reason it wont come through 5 speakers when on spotify and other things like playing mp3's, youtube etc is these are all only 2.0 stero sources. The source has actually got to be a 5.1 source to utilise all the speakers. Like the other guy said, try a 5.1 dvd or try playing a game with 5.1 setup.

You can however emulate 5.1 sound from 2.0 sources by using the button on the control pod. I believe the matrix button does this. It is not true surround but it will make the sound come out of all speakers.

Also make sure the connectors are all plugged in and connected. Also make sure it's configured correctly in windows control panel. Choose 5.1 from the options, then click on each speaker and here the ding dong from them all. If you here it from them all... it's all working correctly.

P.S I use to own those speakers aswell... very easy to setup and configure, unfortunately mine blew up after 8 months of use at full level. So take the hint and dont crank up the volume on them to the max.
 
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