Nforce 2 5.1 surround prob. no rear sound

[buffalobills7]

I have the nforce2 soundstorm motherboard (abit nf-7s v.2) I just bought some creative megaworks 550 speakers 5.1. problem is i cannot get the rear sound to do anything. I know all the speakers are working because i tried them on another computer, I have the latest nvidia 2.03 drivers for this motherboard, and have the sound enabled in the bios, and have the 5.1 selected in the windows control pannel as well as 6 speaker enabled in the nforce control pannel. Basically the black port and orange which connect the rear and center audio do not work at all. There must be something simple that i am missing, any help would be appreciated. Perhaps the motherboard is bad?

[JupiterSSJ4]

if i am correct, the orange port on the motherboard is the microphone jack.

You have found the one problem with onboard sound and creative speakers working with them. They DONT.

The nforce boards only have one sound output plug (unless you have a SPDIF output too, which some speakers have, and then that would work) creative speakers usually have 2 or more plugs if it is more than a 2.1 system. You have to use another creative sound card (i use a soundblaster live 5.1 (33 bucks)). This will allow you to plug in both connectors and thus it will make the sound work wonderfully. Since you got the nicer speakers, I would recommend the audigy brand, you dont have 6.1 so you don't need the audigy2.

Hope this helps and sorry about silly creative... they just have to be different.

[Captain Hilts]

buffalobills7, have you resolved this problem? I'm just wondering because I have the same board and was looking at getting the same speakers.

[buffalobills7]

yea actually i have resolved it. I plugged teh black jack into the orange port, and the orange jack into the black port. I have sound coming from all six speakers so i am satisfied.

[Captain Hilts]

Okay thanks for the info, I figured that it was false that the nforce2 audio and creative speakers were not compatable.

Are you happy with the sound quality?

[Randalthas]

I would like to throw my 2 cents in. I have been having the same problem for some time and have been trying to find a solution. I am using the Creative 4400 and some older Cambridge Dolby 5.1 setup on my two machines. Here's what I know so far.

I have been arguing with Creative about their speaker compatibility. I must admit that the speakers should indeed work on any system. They acutally work on a stereo system. So there is no magic on the Creative side.

* Edit * I have also noted people with the Logitech speakers (Z80s I think, I'm not familiar with them) experiencing this problem as well.

I think it is a driver problem. There are numerous people with the same problem on the Abit forums. The problem seems to be with any of the three NF7 models, regardless of version. Here's the kicker: Abit and NVidia will not acknowledge the existance of the issue. I have been unable to get any resonse from Abit or NVidia for over three weeks now.

Most people are not able to get the rear channels to work by simply plugging the cords in the 'wrong' holes. Grats to buffalobills7 for getting lucky:) . It does not work for me.

I used an O-Scope and found that there is NO signal what-so-ever on two of the output jacks. So, something in the drivers is not turning on the sound. This problem does not seem to be related to OS. I've seen complaints from 98 and XP users.

Many, but not all, seem to have found a solution over at the Realtek site. I haven't done the exploring yet to find them, but it sounds as though Realtek has a set of drivers that allow the Realtek codec to operate correctly, go figure;) . This solution seems to take care of many users of the NON-Soundstorm Southbridge. From what I have read so far, Soundstorm users (NF7-S) who experience this problem have been able to work it out with updated drivers from NVidia and changing control panel options.

I will try the Realtek drivers tonight when I get home.
I hope to post a more organized thread documenting all of my imformation if and when I get a solution. Good luck.

[buffalobills7]

ok well there are some options that i have messed around within xp to get these speakers working. Firstly under sounds and audio devices in the control panel click advanced under device volume then advanced again under master volume and i checked both boxes under "other controls". In addition to that under the nvidia nforce control panel i have only analong output checked, and i left "dolby surround encoding" unchecked. For some reason the sound is severely muffeled when that option is checked. If you have any other questions about me configuration just ask. I am wondering if perhaps i am losing sound quality by not having dolby surround encoding checked. Are there any sound testers out there that i can use to check out the surround functions, you know such as like a helicopter flying around my room from one speaker to another?

ryan

[Randalthas]

This might be what you are looking for.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=nvswap_1.0

It's called NVSwap. Its not a helicopter, but it cycles white noise through all of the speaker channels.

But sit down, because this is funny. The problem we are having does not exist with this utility!:eek: That's right, even I get sound out ALL 4 SPEAKERS when I run this utility. (I told you it was funny.) This just proves to me that the/my problem is not hardware related. It can be corrected with the right code. I hope the Realtek drivers will do it.

buffalobills7, Your method seems to be on par with what I have read about Soundstorm users.

Also, the NVidia control panel seems to only work with the Soundstorm board. That makes it even more difficult for us poor slobs with the Realtek.:p

[Captain Hilts]

It's sounds to me that if you have the dolby encoding off then you're not going to get all the channels from a dolby 5.1 source. Have you tried playing a DVD to see if you're getting all the discrete channels?

Perhaps I should just get the Logitech Z-680s with the external digital decoder to avoid these problems, but that's going to cost me well over $100 CAD more.

[Randalthas]

Captain Hilts, I would hold off just a bit. I would hate to get everyone all worked up over nothing. But, I have an older Creative 5.1 system on my main computer (the one with the SBLive5.1). I don't remember the model number, I think it's a DTS5100 maybe. Anyway, that setup has an external Dolby decoder. I have the same problems with that setup as I do with the 4.1 4400s.

I still feel that the problem is in the driver, not the hardware decoding. If I had the choice, I would not buy anything until someone figured out what the real issue is. Of course, if you would like to help the cause and be a test rat, that's OK too;) .

I'm trying to help find a solution. I hope to have one within a week. I have a lot of catching up to do on sound cards and speakers. I'm certainly no expert. I've always just bought Creative stuff. I've always plugged it in and it worked. This is new to me.

[Captain Hilts]

Okay, thanks for the advice. I've had the urge to buy some new speakers for some time now though so I'm not sure how much longer I can hold off. I was actually all set to buy the Z-680s before but when I saw the Megaworks 550 THX for only $279 CAD that made me think twice about which set I should get.

If I do buy something soon, I will post the results. In the meantime, I found this thread which may or may not shed some light on the sound problems for the NF7-S:

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/archive/topic/48693-1.html

[Captain Hilts]

I just picked up the Z-680s and set them up today. I haven't played anything too loud yet because it was already pretty late (I'm in an apartment building) but it sounds pretty damn good so far.

Setup was hassle-free and all speakers work with both the digital and analog connectors.

[Randalthas]

Good to hear. I had some success this weekend too. The Realtek audio drivers were able to get all of my speakers working. I don't like the loud pop that comes out every time the computer is powered on and off, but I guess you can't have everything. I'm still hoping to compile the information on our struggles and post it in one thread.

[Captain Hilts]

That's good to know. I think a lot of the confusion has just come from the fact that creative uses different colour connectors, so people have been getting confused about which output connector is which on the sound card. But as you said there are some other problems other than this but you seem to have them solved now.