Realtek HD Audio with 5.1 Speakers

TBH if you have a decent Music setup, then i would buy a decent sound card liek the X-fi xtreme music. and if you can connect your Speakers to your s/Card via either optical or coaxiel SPDIF.

anyway on your problem, let me get this straight.
you haev 6 speaker (5.1) yea.

anyway on your problem, letr me get this straight.
you have 6 speaker (5.1) yea.
-5.1 foesnt have a any side speaker, so why not set your s/card to 5.1?

what happens if you play a DVD (not copied or compressed) on your system? do you get 5.1

I also have it set to 8 and in the speaker test everything works but anytime i play anything in media player or showtime , anything really, i only get stereo . WTF!

we'll i updated from an msi k9mm-v with 5.1 out and it functioned just fine , no matter what file i played it came thru the sub and rear speakers , windows is set to 5.1 , and when i do the speaker test in the realtek software they al work , i cant seem to find the microsoft update to uninstall it like what was mentioned in your thread , what update number is it?

when i hit the dts interactive tab it informs me that only the digital outputs will be used, i went ahead and gave it a shot and nada as my speakers are just a cheap set of 5.1's ..... looking for an update with no luck

Hi

Dunno if anyone is even gonna read this but i also came across this problem yesterday. I got a GA-MA790FX-DQ6 a few days ago and the 5.1 also works fine in the Realtek HD Audio Manager but only plays through 2 speakers (the "front" speakers) using winamp or media player. I think the retards at Realtek thought they would do us a favour and make all stereo recorded audio only work through 2 speakers - real useful since most stuff is recorded in stereo - gee i didnt wanna use my other speakers anyway <sarcasm>.

Okay so you have two options as i see it to fix this problem - don't know if it will be the same for you guys.

1 - you can set your speaker config to 2 channel in Realtek Audio Manager - that sometimes allows you to configure the sound to come out of all the speakers (kinda sets all your speakers to front) - you might have to select the audio jacks through the manager and change eat audio jack that the speakers are plugged into to "line out". - The only problem with this is when you have true 5.1 from say a dvd you'll have to manually go change back to 6 channel audio or whatever you looking for.

2 - i used an older driver from my previous gigabyte board (older Realtek driver). My previous driver was the Realtek R1.50. You might have to uninstall your driver and then install this older one - I didn't have to i just installed it over the newer one, restarted my pc and when I was back in windows went into the Realtek Audio Manager and set my stuff to 6 channel and everything worked fine. - I think the trade-off on this is you might lose some of the features especially if you have a newer chipset but for me i couldn't really care - I don't see why I need the extra environment settings like simulating me playing my speakers on the top of a mountain.

If it helps any i'm running on Windows XP SP2. GA-MA790FX-DQ6. Realtek ALC889A Onboard Audio.

Hello,

I figured out the problem, but not the solution :

Speaker setup up is :
front speakers and rear speakers settings in the connection menu popup. (black output is the rear, the front is green /below black/)

If you set-up 4 ch mode in settings, REAR speakers are muted.
Becauase in this channel mode there the 4 speaker means 2 FRONT and two SIDE speakers. What the hell ?!

If you set to 8 ch mode, you will hear the same speakers as REAR speakers, as it's should be.
But in this case you will not get the correct 4 ch sound, because for example monoaural center sound will not be hear in the front speakers.

This is really confusing situation. Why 4 ch mode according to side speakers, I don't know, but totally unusable the onboard sound card to enjoy full 4 ch speaker setup.

Best Regards,
pubem

quick note for winamp - u need to use custom extension to get your winamp output to 5.1. Check the website for solution
By default winamp output is stereo...

I had the same problem with the VIA Realtek Audio driver.

Found a small button named "Speaker fill" where you set up how many speakers you have (HD Audio deck) and it works perfekt. Guess it was as easy as that for me atleast, it uses the 2.1 musik and fills all speakers with it

It sounds like the problem with 5.1 sound is you're plugging them into the wrong port. In a true 5.1, the best speaker setup is to have the "rear" speakers on either side of you facing your ears and all speakers equidistance from you. I'd imagine you are plugging the "rear" speaker plug from your speakers into the rear speaker plug on your on-board audio, when instead it should be going into the side speaker. This will give you the fullest audio, since otherwise you are probably missing sounds to the side speakers when it is set to an 8 speaker setup.

Anyway, since it really is a 2 channel sound source you're using, you need to set any applications that use stereo to matrix or in some way add the extra channels. Unfortunately, you'd probably have to get a decoder for that, since Realtek, as a cheap onboard solution, is not going to provide an application for that like a true sound card company would. PowerDVD or WinDVD will add the capability in WMP and probably winamp, as well.

hi Guys!


had the same problem as everyone described...I have also instaled relatek hd r1.50 audio driver and now the sound is great and it work on all speakers (5.1)...I have one question though...NOw i am runing on windows XP SP3...I am planing to install Vista (becouse of the Media center)...has anybody solved the same problem runing on Vista (just to mention..my first operation system was Vista and had the same problem)??

Control Panel>sound>double click speakers>dolby tab> Dolby ProLogic IIx check box. Solved my problem. Although of course not true 5.1 but neither are my MP3s... so there ya go.

Can u post here a link with driver 1.50 pls ? i cant find it anywhere. thanx