dolby 5.1 using speakers only plays stereo in wmc

[sdowney717]

I have this setup as 4 channel front and rear speakers, that is all I have.
A set of stereo front and a set of stereo rear speakers, so 4 speakers.
In the windows sound setup, all 4 speakers play just fine on the test, front rear, play the stereo test.

WMC i went and tried to setup but only get front speakers, no rear speakers.
I see in WMC they only offer stereo and 5.1 sound.

So what to do to get the rear speakers working?

When I told WMC I could not hear my speakers properly, WMC mentioned are your codecs properly configured.

 

[fireberd]

With your 4 speakers, do you also have a bass speaker?

You can try the 5.1 setup in WMC and see if that makes a difference. Some audio is only set up for stereo (in your case the front speakers).

 

[sdowney717]

I have no bass woofer.

VLC does play all 4 speakers. VLC is actually doing 5.1 sound as all the jacks have the various sounds they should have, center, woofer seperate from rear and front.

Windows sound conguration plays all 4 speakers properly one after the other.
I tried setting sound config to 5.1 speakers but WMC made no difference.
I tried WMC with 5.1 and only hear sound from the front stereo mini plug, the center-woofer, rear jacks are dead in WMC.
It must be a config issue in WMC, not sending the sound out to the various ports.

I am using the speaker setup after I did the main setup since I added speakers.

 

[sdowney717]

A screen shot showing the speaker tests, I dont have center and woofer.

 

[sdowney717]

So I unchecked center and woofer.
All 4 speakers play in the test.

To me this means windows is configured ok, WMC is not configured ok.
Especially since VLC as a test does play sound from all the mini jacks.

 

[sdowney717]

WMC speaker setup pages

So how can WMC be forced to play the sound?

 

[fireberd]

I suspect a WMC incompatibility with a 4.0 speaker system. That is not a common sound system. 4.1 systems were common for a short time years ago, but the 2.0/2.1, 5.1 and 7.1 systems have now become the "standard".

 

[sdowney717]

Maybe, I gave up on that card and put in a pci sound blaster live.
The dynex envy 24 card caused my win ATI HDTV PCI tuner to not start.

I am using the kx driver.
In win7, the master mix is broken in kx driver, so set default to 6/7 and set switch front and rear.
So I get 4.0 sound output now.

IF you leave it set on master mix as default, then you get a subtle his, pop, noise, which makes you think your SB Live sound card is bad. Also made me wonder if the PCI slot was bad, but it was fine.

I already spent too much on this old PC so I am using what I have for sound cards.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/general-discussion/205334-noise-popping-static-fixed.html

I tried the AC3, but seems to put equal sound on all 4 speakers.
I also had to disable the builtin mb chip, because WMC hung.
The motherboard does not have mini jacks for rear, center, woofer, but does have spdif. Chip is an realtex 888.

BUT, only WMC hung. Windows played sounds ok with both cards on.