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Asus Xonar sound card not working with receiver. Need advice on a new card

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  • Asus
  • Consoles
  • Components
  • Sound Cards
Last response: in Components
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April 1, 2014 11:47:24 AM

Hello and thank you for reading my post. Sorry its a little long.

I just recently ( I should say trying) switched from console to PC for mainly gaming. I built a system with a
AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
GA-990FXA-UD3 Socket AM3+ 990FX ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA GeForce GTX760
Asus Xonar DS Sound card
Corsair Builder 500WM
Windows 7.1
Samsung plasma 50"
Onkyo 5.1 receiver (does not support HDMI pass through)


My goal is to use this system to play movies, music, and gaming (just like I was doing with the PS4) and have the audio go through my receiver in 5.1. I pretty much have everything working except for the sound card. I fear I might have picked up the wrong sound card or its just me.

This sound card has been nothing but very frustrating to setup to have the audio go through my receiver using optical and actually have the sound come out of all the speakers. So far I have only been able to get it to go through the left and right speaker. I have pretty much read myself in a circle with all the forums trying to find either what I am doing wrong or if this card is not the one I should be using.

I have updated the drivers to the latest.. I checked the sound control panel and the sound card is the only one set. With in the Asus software I set the speakers to 5.1 and I have tried all the channels. PCM is also enabled.
When the optical cable is hooked up and I run the test. I see on the receiver that it says stereo instead of any other audio formats. It seems like the Asus control panel does not really do anything to help the issue. I pretty much have turned every knob I could in different combinations (basic dart throwing)
My mother board does have hd audio via optical. And when I re-enable it in the bios I see in the receiver it switches over to dolby but sound also only comes out from the front right and left speaker (from what I read that is expected to only do 2 channel from the mother board hence the sound card).

I am not sure what to try next to get the sound card to send audio to all the 5.1 speakers.

Is the card the issue or maybe i have a faulty card or something I maybe missing?? I thought that this would have been the easiest part so I saved it for last. guess not..

Reading some posts people mention that sound blaster Z series is a much better and easier card to work with to get pc to home theater working. One of the posts also mentioned that the Xonar card will only do dolby through head phones. Figured I would ask the experts here..

Should I just bring this card back and get a new one or is it something I am doing wrong?

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again for reading and appreciate any help!

More about : asus xonar sound card working receiver advice card

a b Ĉ ASUS
April 1, 2014 12:04:45 PM

If your motherboard had optical audio, you have no need for a sound card if you are using optical as an interface. typically it requires software from your speakers (say i have logitech z901 setup and it has it's own control center). other than that, you need to do some exploring with the cards software to figure out how to enable the different audio settings.

1 asus is just fine as a sound card, but the optical on your motherboard is a better solution for 5.1 than any sound card will be
2. for 5.1 to work, you really need to consult the manual of your speakers and the sound card to see what needs to be plugged in where.


3. it is just you, but don't be discouraged by this; new tech is always a learning experience and typically it should take you no less than a full hour of reading the manual if you have never done anything like this before. I would suggest using driversweeper to completely uninstall all the drivers for the sound card, and then retrying (i would advise that you go directly to the asus site instead of using the driver disk that comes with the sound card)
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April 1, 2014 12:43:39 PM

Brantyn Gerik said:
If your motherboard had optical audio, you have no need for a sound card if you are using optical as an interface. typically it requires software from your speakers (say i have logitech z901 setup and it has it's own control center). oth...


Hello Brantyn thanks for your quick reply.
I would gladly use my mother board's optical connection to my receiver. I read somewhere that MB's only ever send in 2 channel so I would never really get all my speakers, other then the front two to play audio? Is that false information or just maybe that is how it use to be with older mother boards?

On the back of my receiver there are only two optical in's. I have one hooked one up to Ps4 and the other to the asus card. I tried switching them also, to see if it was some thing wrong with my receiver. But same thing Ps4 dolby in either opt port and same result with the asus card.

I'll re enable the on board audio and check that to see how that works.
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a b Ĉ ASUS
April 1, 2014 12:46:36 PM

No, optical supports up to 5.1, and if your mobo has jacks for 5.1, it will send out that many signals. (so one connector like the green one for headphones only supports 2.0, but as you add the black, orange and pink (not the mic one) you can get up to 5.1 and 7.1
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April 1, 2014 1:03:00 PM

Brantyn Gerik said:
No, optical supports up to 5.1, and if your mobo has jacks for 5.1, it will send out that many signals. (so one connector like the green one for headphones only supports 2.0, but as you add the black, orange and pink (not the mic one) you can get up to 5.1 and 7.1


Awesome! I will give it a try tonight and mark the solution.

Thanks again for your time!!
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April 4, 2014 8:39:16 AM

Brantyn Gerik said:
No, optical supports up to 5.1, and if your mobo has jacks for 5.1, it will send out that many signals. (so one connector like the green one for headphones only supports 2.0, but as you add the black, orange and pink (not the mic one) you can get up to 5.1 and 7.1


I figured out what the issue was..
After switching over to use the mobo sound I still had the same issue. I rechecked all settings. In the control panel under audio, I went into the properties of the optical. In that window you can set level's kHz, and see the properties of the audio device, blah blah. There was one tab that was for Dolby digital that just looked like the splash screen for dolby. Turns out there was a little icon on there to open a new window. With in the dolby window you can set few things nothing really important except you can turn it off(which obviously turn important).

I turned it off and went back to the 5.1 test icon, hit test, and now sound comes through all the speakers. Blue ray and games play full surround sound. The only thing that does not is pandora through the browser, which comes in two channel. But I guess I can live with that lol.
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