Calling all TWC Vista owners

[Elrond]

I recently bought a 5.1 surround sound system for my computer which runs vista ultimate.

Unfortunatly sound can only be heard from the two speakers which are plugged into the green sound socket at the back of my computer.

I have been told this is due to the blue and pink ports being set as imputs instead of out puts - this makes sense as all the speakers work when they are pluged into the green socket but not but this can only take two speakers at once.

The guys at my local computer shop have said that they still use XP so they dont no how to change the socket settings on vista so that leaves me with only two working speakers.

I would be greatful for any help that can be given.

[darox]

This may sound odd but have you checked the speaker setting that it's configured to 5.1 speakers and not two desktop/stereo ones? Because I at first had no sound on my rear speakers either but that was the cause. You'll find it under System\Sound the configuration tab.

Sorry, if your problem is more complex and I'm just not getting it.

[Erik]

Yes, you probably just have to set your speakers from "stereo" to "5.1/surround"
I don't have Vista, so I don't know how, but it can't be that hard.
Doesn't Vista have something similar to XP's Control Panel?

If that doesn't fix it I have a different explanation:
It could be that your rear channels are working, but set to a very low volume compared to the front speakers.
This makes sense in a normal movie setup where you sit in the back of the room (like on the couch) and the front speakers are farther from you than the rear speakers are.
In a normal gaming setup you sit closer to the front speakers than to the rear, so you need a different calibration.

[Elrond]

Theres no sound from 4 of the speakers, its definatly the ports not working - its setup as surround sound - I need to find out now to set the blue and pink ports to work as outputs so the surrround sound works properly.

[darox]

I suppose it does have those features and I guess once one comes to terms with the OS is probably pretty easy to use but so far I find everything rather confusing and at times annoying. For instance this right clicking and starting the program as admin is tedious, as is copying or moving a simple file and having to click at least three times 'continue' until it does so, nor did it show the unpacked .xml files immediately. Needed to click 'compatibility files' for them to be shown. Surely one can deactivate some of these features somewhere but I'll probably won't take the time to get into it and revert back to XP soon. Am really only using Vista because it was installed on the new PC.