HT Omega Claro Plus... XP w/SP3

Guys, I know this is a Windows 7 forum but I feel so at home here that I decided to turn to my brethren for an XP question as well.

So I am trying to help a friend with this card but I can not get the speakers to work with it. This is what I have done so far, but first his Specs.

EVGA 680i SLI mobo
Intel CPU E6300
Nvidia 8800GT w/Accelero S2
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card (old one)
HT Omega Claro Plus (new one)
Altec Lansing THX ADA995
Samsung 700 HDD
CD/DVD +/- R/W
Microsoft Mouse
Dell Keyboard

OK, first of all I unistalled the old card and the drivers, went to the Bios and Disabled the onboard audio, which I already new it was but wanted to make sure, inserted the HT Claro Plus card in the same PCI slot where the old card was (in hindsight, I guess I should have used another PCI slot, will try that later).

Booted back to windows desktop and cancel the "Found New Hardware Wizard. Inserted the cd from HT Omega and it immediately started to install everything the it went to install the drivers. It asked me to restart so I did.

Proceeded to plug in the cables from the Altec Lansing THX, Green for Front, Yellow for Center and Black for Rear and here is where things got interesting... Nothing happen.

I opened the Omega control panel and clicked on each speaker and the front ones made a slight noise but nothing else made any sound.

Shuffled the plugs around to no avail.

I tested the card with some wired headsets and I was able to hear music from the headsets so I know the card is seated and working correctly but I that's about it.

Is there any other way to test the Speaker System as that would be the only thing that I would suspect is bad, even though if I wiggle the plugs the speaker make a pop sound, which it kind of tells me they work.

Anyways, I would appreciate any hints you guys may have.

Oh, I also went to the HT Omega site to see if I could download newer drivers but it appears that the ones I am using (the ones that came with the CD) are newer than those on the site, which btw, it strike me as very odd since we all know that the sites usually have the newer drives.

I have an HT Omega Strker 7.1 sound card installed (works great). Check the Control Panel Hardware and Sound to verify the Claro is set as the default device for the various sound functions, as a start. I suspect they are using basically the same software as the Striker 7.1 which is actually drivers from a Taiwaneese company - HT Omega doesn't actually do the software.

What happens if you plug the headset into the Speaker jack on the rear, do you get any sound?

Have you reseated (with the PC powered off) the Sound Card? It's being detected so it's either a driver or Control Panel configuration issue. One other suggestion, Uninstall the device in the Device Manager (do not uninstall the drivers) then restart the PC and Windows should find new hardware and install the sound card again. Sometimes this fixes flakey problems.

fireberd said:

. Check the Control Panel Hardware and Sound to verify the Claro is set as the default device for the various sound functions, as a start.

I stumbled on to it by mistake while I was trying desperately to find a solution but... YES, the Claro sound card is the default device on everything.

fireberd said:

What happens if you plug the headset into the Speaker jack on the rear, do you get any sound?

I assume you are talking about the Read Output Jack on the Card? If so... IITC, the only jack that produced any kind of sound was the rear jack, the center jacks didn't produced any sound when we connected the wired headsets in.

fireberd said:

Have you reseated (with the PC powered off) the Sound Card? It's being detected so it's either a driver or Control Panel configuration issue.

As a matter of fact I did, only because the first time around the card was loose so we turned the PC off, unplugged everything, opened the case and reseated the card but, again... I didn't think about trying the card on an unused slot, more so because of how crowded the mobo is with the Accelero heatsink that came with the video card but will try that later on today.

fireberd said:

One other suggestion, Uninstall the device in the Device Manager (do not uninstall the drivers) then restart the PC and Windows should find new hardware and install the sound card again. Sometimes this fixes flakey problems.

I will also try this as well.

I went ahead and downloaded the drivers from the site just in case I read the versions wrong, at the very least I want to feel comfortable that I have the latest drivers.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help...

Changed card from the original slot to a new slot and nothing happened, no sound, no nothing.

Frustated as hell but then, I decided to test the card with the headsets and again, I had sound coming from the card to the headsets, I also tried a pair of speakers I had and sound came out so the only logical explanation is that his 5.1 Speaker system burned out or gave out... to bad I can't really test it to know for sure.

I will be buying a new speaker system for him so if you have a tip of what to buy... I will also appreciate that.

Too many speaker systems. Go to Best Buy, CompUSA or wherever PC speakers are sold so you can listen to what they have and compare. How much $$ you want to pay will play a part in the selection too.

Therein lies the problem... WAY to many to choose from.

He's looking into 250 to 300 bucks for expenditure

You are right though and I will go to Best Buy to see what they have.