Topic: Rear speakers not working

[W7RE]

I've been using headphones for the longest time (WoW+Ventrilo = peoples' ears bleed if you don't use headphones) so I never tried to get this working properly until now. I have an ASUS Crosshair with onboard "SupremeFX" sound, which uses software called SoundMAX. I have a Creative Inspire... something, 5.1 speaker system. (It's analog. It's got 3 wires to plug into the back of the computer: front speakers, rear speakers, and center/sub).

At first all I could get to work was the front left/right speakers and subwoofer. Then I installed a new version of the driver/software and got my center speaker to work. Then I found [img=http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081216210626049&board_id=1&model=Crosshair&page=1&SLanguage=en-us]http://this post on the asus forums[/img], but that didn't help either. (basically it says that ASUS doesn't update the pages for older motherboards, so you have to get the newer version from the page for a newer board.)

Oh, and the way I'm testing to see if my speakers are working is by going into the SoundMAX settings and testing the speaker setup, where it puts a sound or some music to each speaker, one at a time. The sub is thumping for all speakers, and all of them work except for the 2 rear ones.

[Xessive]

Have you double-checked the cables?

According to Asus, the latest SoundMAX audio drivers listed under the Crosshair mobo are v6.10.01.6400, dated December 17, 2008.

I have an older mobo, P5W-DH Deluxe, it has Realtek HD onboard audio. Asus pretty much stopped updating its page in 2007, but I get my audio drivers directly from Realtek anyway with a lot more success. Have you checked SoundMAX's website for their drivers?

Also, are you using Vista or XP?

[W7RE]

I'm on XP pro 32-bit, and yea I've double checked the cables. The newer SoundMAX drivers I installed last night were 5.10.10.6480 or somethign like that. I guess the thread I found was old enough that it wasn't even up to date. I'll try the newest drivers and check back.

Any idea how to get to the newest drivers on the ASUS website? I go to driver downloads and it wants me to put in my mobo type and OS so I do: Socket AM2, Crossfire, then Win XP, and the newest one it shows me is 5.10.01.6310 from 1008/12/17. I guess I shoudl be just going to one of their newer motherboards with soundmax, but I have no idea what's new and what's old when I get to socket type. I tried the Crosshair II, but it still offered me a 5.xxx driver version.

[Xessive]

I'm on XP pro 32-bit, and yea I've double checked the cables. The newer SoundMAX drivers I installed last night were 5.10.10.6480 or somethign like that. I guess the thread I found was old enough that it wasn't even up to date. I'll try the newest drivers and check back.

Any idea how to get to the newest drivers on the ASUS website? I go to driver downloads and it wants me to put in my mobo type and OS so I do: Socket AM2, Crossfire, then Win XP, and the newest one it shows me is 5.10.01.6310 from 1008/12/17. I guess I shoudl be just going to one of their newer motherboards with soundmax, but I have no idea what's new and what's old when I get to socket type. I tried the Crosshair II, but it still offered me a 5.xxx driver version.

Yes, the drivers I saw are for Vista. It looks they've only been updating those and pretty much given up support for XP.

The XP driver I see on Asus is the same one you've found.

I'm having trouble even finding the official SoundMAX website!

Alrighty, just for the sake of testing to confirm beyond all doubt that the rear speakers are in fact working, try plugging them in the slots of speakers you know are working and run a sound test. If they do work then we know it's almost certainly a software problem.

[W7RE]

I swapped the speaker wires going from the subwoofer to the speakers, and ended up with working rear speakers (outputting front left/right information) and non-working front speakers.

I swapped that back to normal. Then I swapped the wires going from the subwoofer to the back of my PC (one wire for front left/right and one wire for rear left/right). That gave me the same results as swapping the speaker wires.

I was actually hoping it would be the wires haha, because then even if I couldn't get it working at least I'd know the problem. But yea, it's gotta be software. Oh and while messing around on the back of my subwoofer I saw the model of the speaker set. Creative Inspire 5300.

[Xessive]

Cool, nice speaker set

Ok, do you know what model the SoundMAX onboard audio is? I'm almost certain it's an AC'97 but what revision is it? You should be able to see this info in the sound management and speaker test application. Try looking for an "about" or "more info" section.

[W7RE]

When I go tot he "about soundmax" thing in the software, it just tells me I'm running version 5.2 of the software. I have the box for the motherboard still though, I can get the info off that if that helps.

SupermeFX Audio Card
featuring ADI 1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
Support Jack-Sensing, Enumeration, Multi-streaming and Jack-Retasking
Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out on the back I/O port
*ASUS Array Mic
*Noise Filter

It says coaxial and s/pdif but my speaker system is analog.

I did see in my BIOS that it's got an option for "AC79" or "HD Audio", but I think that option was "front panel audio", and I don't even have a front panel setup (stole my case from a shitty pentium 1 rofl).

[scottws]

Somewhere in the Control Panel there is a way to set your speaker setup.  I'd check but I'm on Linux right now.

And Asus burns me up the way they stop updating the driver pages.  I just discovered this yesterday when I was looking for Windows 7 drivers for my Asus P5B-E.  Last updates are from 2007.  It doesn't look like they are going to update the drivers for my motherboard for Windows 7.  Maybe there is a newer board they are going to update that has the same parts, but I have no idea what that might be.

[W7RE]

Yea, if I go to Sounds and Audio Devices in my control panel I can tell it what my speaker setup is (stereo speakers, 5.1 surround, 7.1 surround, etc). I've set that to 5.1, and done it in my SoundMAX software as well. Then I use the SoundMAX software to send a test music loop to each speaker, one at a time. When it gets to the rear speakers I hear nothing.

[scottws]

Try changing that BIOS setting.  I have the same setting and I don't think it's just for the front panel.  Mine is set to HD Audio.  But I don't use rear speakers so I don't know if this will really make a difference.

[W7RE]

Just checked it, it's called "front panel support type". I had it set to AC97 and I changed it to HD Audio. No difference.

There's also "HD Audio" which can be set to Auto or Disabled. Just as I assumed, that just turns the sound support on or off completely.

[Xessive]

Keep your HD Audio activated anyway. AC'97 is the legacy audio codec optimized for pre-XP setups, at least that's what I gathered from online articles.

Does the software allow jack auto-detection? If it does you may just need to open it and specifically select "rear" or "side" speakers. Sometimes those channels are swapped. I do believe that for the standard 5.1 it assumes the two surrounds are "side" speakers by default.

Look for something in the app that will allow you to choose what sort of speakers are hooked to the back panel jacks.

[W7RE]

OK this is messed up. It's working now, out of nowhere. I went looking for a way to specify which jack is what in the software, which I can't find. It does autodetect and let you tell it what you just plugged in, but when you plug it in wrong it won't let you proceed until you fix it. (I tried using the side jack for rears, thinking maybe the jack for the rears had gone bad). So I ran ran the setup wizard (for like the 50th time), and noticed when I ran the test, I had audio through the rears, just very low.

So now it's working, but to have balanced sound, I have all speakers set to 3% volume with the rears set to 100%. I really don't think I was getting audio through them all this time, because when testing them I would grab the speaker off the wall and press it to my ear. I never used to turn my volume knob up past 25% or so or it would be too loud, so I really don't feel like I'm having to turn it all the way up to hear my speakers. It's still weird that the rears are so quiet in comparison.


EDIT: Thanks for all the help by the way. I have no idea what finally got it going, kinda wish I did. All I've done since last testing it is install the spore Creature Creator. Maybe EA DRM fixed it?

[W7RE]

ROFLOLOL!1




WTF is that R----F thing there for? Oh, it's balance? It's not supposed to be all the way to the 'F'?

[Xessive]

Hahahaha It's always the simplest thing that we overlook