Onboard 7.1 sound issues

[Summit]

I have a Chaintech Zenith 9cjs motherboard that supposedly has 7.1 Envy24 audio capability. Only... I can't get it to work!

I've been using a 2-speaker setup for years but I finally got around to getting a 5.1 system and somehow I must have it configured incorrectly because it only wants to play sound through the 2-channel main board port. The 7.1 ports are on a separate PCI card that came with the mobo. There is only one diagram for setup in the motherboard manual:



I have to use 3x 1/8'' cables as input - on my speakers there are ports for "front", "rear", and "center/sub". My card's output has ports as "sur.L/R", "alt.L/R", and "center/bass". I've mixed and matched best I can (assuming that the bass/sub ports are truly corresponding) and tried both jumper positions (see diagram above), even both jumpers on at same time, as it was originally packaged, can't get any sound.

Granted... this card was designed for 7.1 output and i'm trying to use 5.1 speakers. Would that make a difference? I assume i'm not going to get true surround, but if I could at least do better than 2-channel sound coming out 4 speakers and a sub like I've got set up now, it would be ideal. There's even a switch on the back of the receiver (built into sub) that I can switch from 2, 4.1, or 5.1 output. I've tried all 3 positions w/ all 3 jumper configurations and still no sound coming out at all! What am I missing?

 

[bz2klag]

I've been using a 2-speaker setup for years but I finally got around to getting a 5.1 system and somehow I must have it configured incorrectly because it only wants to play sound through the 2-channel main board port. The 7.1 ports are on a separate PCI card that came with the mobo. There is only one diagram for setup in the motherboard manual:

I have to use 3x 1/8'' cables as input - on my speakers there are ports for "front", "rear", and "center/sub". My card's output has ports as "sur.L/R", "alt.L/R", and "center/bass". I've mixed and matched best I can (assuming that the bass/sub ports are truly corresponding) and tried both jumper positions (see diagram above), even both jumpers on at same time, as it was originally packaged, can't get any sound.

Granted... this card was designed for 7.1 output and i'm trying to use 5.1 speakers. Would that make a difference? I assume i'm not going to get true surround, but if I could at least do better than 2-channel sound coming out 4 speakers and a sub like I've got set up now, it would be ideal. There's even a switch on the back of the receiver (built into sub) that I can switch from 2, 4.1, or 5.1 output. I've tried all 3 positions w/ all 3 jumper configurations and still no sound coming out at all! What am I missing?

You may need now to tell your audio driver about the new speaker configuration so it will send signals to all three jacks as 5.1 audio instead of just sending stereo output to the main port. Like for Realtek, there is the Realtek taskbar icon that brings up speaker and jack configuration, among other things. Even if you have automatic jack switching, if you still have difficulty, you should try configuring the jacks manually.

The switch on the back of your sub should be set to 5.1.

Edit

**Envy24 from Via Technologies, your control panel will not be from Realtek, but there should
be something similar to let you control the speaker configuration.

 

[Summit]

I already changed that config... to 5.1 Unless there is some preferences menu or settings control panel somewhere that I'm not seeing, all of the Envy variables have been set to what I'm hoping to achieve...
though I don't think I changed it to 7.1 on the software side (even though only the 5 satellites)... wonder if that would make a difference.