P45-UD3P no rear sound

[Baker]

Hi everyone, Tom from Colorado here...and I need help. I've got an odd one for here!

I swapped over a P35-DS3L for a P45-UD3P earlier this month and I suddenly cannot get my rear speakers to work. Im using a tried-n-true set of Creative Labs Inspire 4400 (4.1), using Green (front) and Black (rear) jacks on the mb. I first found the problem on Win7 RC, then did a fresh install of Vista Home Premium thinking it might be Win7, but no dice, and have the same problem regardless of OS. I'm using the Realtek HD Audio Manager with current drivers from Gigabyte *AND* tried to "Rollback" the drivers under Win7RC, using the built-in Windows Speaker manager, but again, no luck.

Please note: I have used my MP3 player, unpluged the BLACK rear jack from the motherboard and into the player, and the speakers do work.

If you're familiar with Sound Manager, you know that when you select "Quadraphonic" or higher, speakers start to show on the screen. As you click on ANY speaker you hear a rising-Synth sound that plays for maybe two seconds. You can alos click on the Blue Play icon and the program runs from speaker-to-speaker automatically. During the time sound is playing, the Play icon is grayed out and the speaker thats playing the sound is highlighted.

PROBLEM: In Quadraphonic, I get no rear sound at all.
- In 5.1 I get no rear sound at all.
- BUT...in 7.1 I get sound!!!

Sure, say it..."this is a great reason to buy a 7.1 sound system!". But I stretched my budget on the mb and the Q9550 I'm now running. This whole thing just doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[bilbat]

In four, and for dot one, there are no rear speakers - just side speakers

 

[r_manic]

Waitaminute, 5.1 should have sound at the rear. That's left-front, right-front, center-front, left-back, and right-back. Or am I wrong? In any case, have you tried another set of speakers or a pair of headphones with your computer? There could also be a problem with your audio jack.

 

[bilbat]

Waitaminute, 5.1 should have sound at the rear.

Should, but it do not
Look carefully at the drivers' physical layout of the speakers:

See what I mean? 7.1 adds the rears - it ain't right, but it is how it is!

 

[Baker]

Waitaminute, 5.1 should have sound at the rear.

Should, but it do not
Look carefully at the drivers' physical layout of the speakers:

See what I mean? 7.1 adds the rears - it ain't right, but it is how it is!

OH MY, bilbat, you just nailed it!

In Realtek HD Audio Manager, I double-clicked on the BLACK output jack image on the right side of the screen, moved it from "Rear Speaker Out" to "Side Speaker Out", AND IT WORKS!

When did 4.1 go to Side L/R in stead of Rear L/R?

This is out of specification for 4.1....right?!

 

[bilbat]

It's plain bizarre - but it is how it is! And, BTW - don't try to 'fix' it - I've already wasted that day! Any other way you try to diddle it around so it looks right to you, just doesn't work. The 'sides' are rears - the 'clong' at the beginning of an HD 'Law & Order' reverberates nicely to the rear of the room; they just wanna be called sides! I think it's a Chinese thing - I'm trying to learn Mandarin, and am amazed that any Chinese speaker can lear to write and say his name by age forty! I figure in five years, I'll be able to talk to GB tech support direct - but, most likely, all I'll be able to say is 'where is the bathroom?' and 'I'd like fries with that!'

 

[Baker]

Ok, my hats-off to bilbat for the solution to the problem.

The icing on the cake was the users manual for the motherboard, where I was even a little more surprised. At the bottom of page 108 it shows the following:

2/4/5.1/7.1-Channel Audio Configurations:
Refer to the following for multi-channel speaker configurations.
• 2-channel audio: Headphone or Line out.
• 4-channel audio: Front speaker out and Side(1)/Rear(2,3) speaker out.
• 5.1-channel audio: Front speaker out, Side(1)/Rear(2,3) speaker out, and Center/Subwoofer speaker out.
• 7.1-channel audio: Front speaker out, Rear speaker out, Center/Subwoofer speaker out, and Side speaker out.

1 = GA-EP45-UD3P (this is my board)
2 = GA-EP45-UD3R
3 = GA-EP45-UD3

So while the UD3 and UD3R systems utilize the BLACK "Rear" connector, the UD3P uses the "Side" for both 4.1 and 5.1 systems.

Thanks you guys for replying, I greatly appreciate it!

- Tom

 

[bilbat]

I'm not sure if that thing in the manual can be trusted; as far as I know, all the GB MOBOs that share the RealTek ALC88x codecs suffer from this peculiarity...

 

[jsc]

This is just one reason I standardized on Gigabyte motherboards. They are pretty consistent in their idiosyncrasies.