My sound system is 5.1 but get only 2.1

[optimus290]

Hey there guys, I recently installed Windows 7 and the problem I am facing is that I am not able to get the Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Mixture/ Sound Panel to work.

I have installed the drivers the traditional way , i.e. by updating the drivers from the device manager but since by default only 2 satellites are selected in the Creative sound panel I am not able to use all the 4 satellite speakers.

I want to know is there any way to get the sound panel working in Windows 7

OR

Is there any way for changing the default selected 2 satellites to 4 satellites by some registry hack or something of that sort.

OR

Is there any other compatible driver?

My sound card is Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1

Please help guys!!!!

 

[zzz2496]

Ouch, your soundcard is no longer supported by Creative, you should buy a newer soundcard that supports Windows 7... I've looked into Creative's support website for your card's driver list, it doesn't have Windows 7 driver support in there... You are best to buy a new soundcard...

zzz2496

 

[stormy13]

As long as it is the Live 5.1 and not the Sound Blaster 5.1 (yes there is a difference) then this,

SB Live! series Support Pack 2.0 (04/30/2010) - Creative Labs

is about the best you can hope for for that card.

 

[optimus290]

As long as it is the Live 5.1 and not the Sound Blaster 5.1 (yes there is a difference) then this,

SB Live! series Support Pack 2.0 (04/30/2010) - Creative Labs

is about the best you can hope for for that card.

well thanks for the link. I tried these drivers and they worked. But the problem which I am facing right now is that I get a constant distortion on all the speakers the moment I turn the sound system on.

Is there anything like any effects or something that can be turned off or something else in the drivers.

Because of this distortion I can't even turn my speakers on now.

 

[alphanumeric]

I just recently installed Support Pack 2.0 on my other PC running windows 7 x86 and had no problems. One thing I noticed when running the older version, 1.5 I think, was that if the speakers were set to 2.1 all I got was some awful sounds coming out of the speakers. Setting it to 5.1 got ride of the noise and everything worked fine. I only had stereo speakers on that PC so even though the documentation said "don't do it, it won't work" I tried it anyway just for fun. I don't know if thats still a problem with version 2 but from what you describe it may be. If you are currently set to 2.1, try changing it to 5.1. If you can't switch it to 5.1 then you may have to re-install the support pack or switch to a different brand of video card.

EDIT:> I just fired up my backup PC with the SB Live 5.1 in it and it appears support pack 2 fixed the 2.1 selection problem in Windows 7. Mine was defaulted to 5.1 and doing a speaker test worked fine for the two I have connected. Switched it to 2.1 and a second speaker test worked fine too. Played a couple of mp3's with media player and all was well also.