Creative Speaker problems.?

Question

I have the Creative Labs Inspire P5800 5.1 Channel Stereo Speaker system, and setup is starting to confuse me. I have a new sound card, and the SoundMAX thing says to plug everything into the card (I think), if I remember right, the manual said to plug everything into the sub woofer.

This is becoming a problem, because I just realized that its been running like a 2.1 (meaning front left and right work, but the back 2 and front-center stay quiet). Everything is set to 5.1, and plugged into the sub, which then plugged into my sound card.

Also, sometimes, the front 2 that do work, will stop or start playing the sound for the rear 2. This can be fixed by setting the wave setting to the far left or far right, giving me one working speaker.

Am I doing something really wrong, or is my system broken?

Answer 1

You can very easily test if the speakers are the problem or not.

1. Disconnect subwoofer from the computer - unplug all three cables.

2. Take an ipod or an mp3 player and one of the jack to jack cables and connect headphone out on the ipod player with the input number one marked green on the subwoofer. Once you hit play your front speakers should play.

3. Then you re-plug the cable on the subwoofer - plug into the black input now. Once you hit play your rear speakers should play now.

4. Finally re-plug the cable and test the orange input. Once you hit play your center front speaker should play.

If all steps 2-4 work the problem is not with the speakers only with the sound max card configuration. Or you might be using the wrong outputs.

If at any stage the test does not work it might mean the problem is with the speakers - or the cables, but you can narrow down what the problem is.

To me it seems likely that the sound max is not properly configured for 5.1 or it is not properly connected with the speakers.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

If you are using a cable that looks like a headphones jack between your sound card and the sub woofer system you will never get 5.1 this will only send DD 2.1 best thing to do is if that system has a fiber input and sour sound card has a fiber output use a fiber optic cable to connect this. This will ensure you will have a 100% digital signal going to the sub woofer system. Of course if whatever you are watching is only transmitting in 2.1 you should have a setting on the sub woofer to enable virtual surround this means that even if you are not getting a true 5.1 signal the system will compensate and make it surround.