5.1 Surround only playing front channels

[Ivoryblade 10+ year member]

Alright.. I just put a Creative Labs 5.1 sound card into my computer and well... it's only playing out of the front speakers. I can put the center jack into the front and it plays, same with the rears... so the speakers or wiring aren't the problem. However, when I have them put into their separate parts (fronts, rears, center), only the front plays. Could I have a defective card?

I've set my computer speaker setup as 5.1 surround, regular surround, etc.. nothing.

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[joetama 5,000+ posts]

You could, it sounds like those channels just aren't getting processed. How old is the card and where did you get it?

 

[IamDeMan 5,000+ posts]

First and foremost http://www.creative.com/support/ is a better place for an answer to your problem.

Secondly it sounds to me like you don't have your speaker properties set up correctly or you aren't playing material encoded with 5.1 information. If you are playing music that has no 5.1 info, then you will need to use an EAX setting to create the rear channels to your liking. If you have in a DVD movie and you have no rear or center then the likely culprit is you have your speaker setup as 2.1 instead of 5.1

You will need to open creatives audioHQ and set it up for 5.1 If you don't have Creative AudioHQ, then install all the software that came with your card or download and install all the necessary software.

Lastly, if this is the "Live" series of 5.1 cards then just throw it out and get an Audigy or better. The Live series 5.1 cards were plagued with many problems that Creative still hasn't bothered to address and copmpletely eradicate. They don't acknowledge any emails for support on that series anymore either.