Steel Series 840 Wireless - No optical on the mobo

Luke Marshall

Luke Marshall

Luke Marshall

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^ is correct it has an optical. I would also try a standard set of headphones with 3.5mm to see if the issue is with the board or the 840 setup
 
Hi dude...I've got the siberia 800s and I've used these via usb and optical. I use the optical via my external sound card . This enables you to access the 5.1 or 7.1. Using the usb does not give you this just equaliser on the control box. .
 
There's no optical port on that board then.

Weirdly the OCUK listing does say "Support for S/PDIF ouput"... But can't see any mention on the Gigabyte website.

Edit: Must be a type on the OcUK listing, no mention of it in the motherboard manual.
 
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Support for SPDIF output, means that the motherboard has a header to which a SPDIF bracket can be connected. It's listed among the specs under I/O internal connectors.

However; with an ITX motherboard and likely ITX case, there isn't going to be room for a PCI type SPDIF bracket...

OP might have to get a sound card for optical.

Looking into the USB connection; I'm not sure what Neil says is correct. He seems to suggests using USB gives only equaliser control. In the manual, it shows USB connection for PC use. It does shows Dolby Pro Logic II though and not Dolby Digital, like it does for optical connection. He might just be implying that you don't get Dolby Digital via USB though, not that USB does nothing other than give equaliser control.

I don't understand though why the Siberia 800's don't support 5.1/7.1 audio if connected to the PC via USB. A USB sound card receives 5.1/7.1 via USB and there are plenty of wired USB headsets that have Dolby 7.1, same the Siberia 800 does, so it's not as if 5.1/7.1 audio data cannot be sent via USB; yet Steelseries have made the Siberia 800, so using USB uses Pro Logic II, which takes stereo and upmixes it to surround.

Why could they not have 5.1/7.1 audio data send to the base unit via USB then apply Dolby Headphone to that? Same as a Xonar USB sound card does for example.

Optical connection and Dolby Digital makes sense for console use, but for PC, it makes no sense.
 
Yeah, I am absolutely baffled as to why usb doesn't support surround sound!

Is there room on that ITX motherboard for a soundcard? There is only one PCI slot which is taken up by my graphics card?
 
You could get an external one, which I think is what Neil does, as he mentions external sound card in post #4. Which one he has though, I don't know.
 
I'm not sure about that, because the specs list Windows from 98SE up to XP. What about Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10? No mention of those.

Comes with driver CD, but if updated drivers are needed for Windows 10, where would you get them from?

I think you'll be better off with a Creative or Asus USB sound card; however, neither has anything as cheap as that one.
 
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