Sound only coming out of Left/Right speakers (in 5.1 setup)

[Booshist]

I am having a problem that applications do not use the center or rear left/right speakers of my setup, when i play a song from itunes, media player or play a film in vlc, the sound only comes from the left and right speakers.
I have gone through the vista sound manager, checked that all the speakers work, and they do, when i test them i hear the sound from every speaker clearly, but in applications i do not.

Now i found a way of getting them to run in 5.1 (enabling the soundmax black hawk sound effects) however this makes the sound very tinny and horrible compared, and ive tried changing all the settings in this soundmax blackhawk and it just sounds the same, very bad quality

If anyone has any information i would be very very grateful as it is aggrovating!

ps the speakers are fine as ive used them with vista on 2 other pc's


Incase it helps im using:
Windows Vista Ultimate 64
Asus P5Q-E Motherboard
--> Soundmax HD Audio Driver 6.1 (the latest one)
Intel Q6600 3.2ghz

 

[Fubsy]

Music is usually (you can get 5.1 music tracks) only stereo, so thus only use left and right speakers

There may be a way to force it to use all speakers but it won't sound any better and most probably worse.

 

[Booshist]

Yeah i was aware of this, but it used to come out of all speakers

But the real problem now is all my apps only work in Stereo not just music, games and films that are 5.1

 

[benjo plz.]

what setup do you have?

 

[utajoker]

something i did on my xfi which gave the same results, i have a slider for x-fi cmss 3d sound all the way to surround so it was only using the rear 2 speakers, u may have something similar. just a stab in the dark