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SPDIF Port on My Laptop

Y

YellowSnow

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
Messages
463
CN: I want 5.1 audio from my new laptop to my crappy Samsung HT-Z320 HTiB.

I just bought this laptop:

MSI E7235-295US AKA MSI GX723.

I'd like to use it as an HD HTPC periodically. The picture is easy since it's got HDMI out. However, my TV cannot passthrough surround sound. Unfortunately it takes 5.1/7.1 signal from HDMI and downgrades it to stereo before passing it to my crappy HTiB via optical (Toslink) cable.

Fortunately the laptop has an SPDIF output (shared with the 3.5mm headphone jack as per page 26 of the the manual). SPDIF should be surround (5.1 or 7.1) right?

But SPDIF can be optical or coaxial as per Wikipedia, so I contact support and they say that it is optical. I even showed them a link to the cable I was considering and they said that it was exactly what I'd need.

So I bought the cable and plugged it all in, but it's not working. And I'm not getting any red light from the port or the cable even with audio playing so I think maybe they're confused. They say to send it in for repair to fix the issue, but I think they're unsmart...

The following image shows me that the computer isn't even sending digital out since it's "not plugged in" (but the cable I bought is plugged in). I also upgraded to the latest driver from Realtek, but that didn't help.

Untitled.png
 
maybe it's not optical? the manual doesn't say if it's either or. try a 3.5mm mono mini plug to rca. then use a normal rca to the htib. I used to use digital out on my old sblive cards this way.
 
That's what I was thinking, not optical, but I might be screwed then... So RCA can carry 5.1 digital audio? My HTiB doesn't have coaxial in, which I thought was the other "SPDIF" media format.

Do any of the inputs on it other than optical carry 5.1?

Connectivity Anynet+ Yes
Wireless-Ready Yes
Wireless Module included No
USB Host Yes
HDMI Inputs No
HDMI Out Yes
SCART Out No
Audio Inputs 2
Optical Inputs 1
Coaxial Inputs No
Headphone Jack 0
Mic Jack No
Click to expand...

http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/...x.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=spec&fullspec=F
 
YellowSnow said:
That's what I was thinking, not optical, but I didn't know what the alternative is. So RCA can carry 5.1 digital audio? My HTiB doesn't have coaxial in, which I thought was the other "SPDIF" media format.

Do any of the inputs on it other than optical carry 5.1?



http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/...x.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=spec&fullspec=F
Click to expand...

coax can carry 5.1 digital just fine. If the soundcard output does it is another story. Since it appears you don't have coax digital inputs.. You can still get the adapter at any local radio shack. Make sure it's a 3.5 mono to rca then get the coax to optical converter from monoprice. I don't think it was too much. I've done the same thing with a midiman co2. (which is now maudio)
 
Thanks. I'm considering just sending the laptop back to Tigerdirect before the 30 day satisfaction warranty is up. It's annoying that they don't spell out if it's optical or coaxial in the documentation.
 
YellowSnow said:
Thanks. I'm considering just sending the laptop back to Tigerdirect before the 30 day satisfaction warranty is up. It's annoying that they don't spell out if it's optical or coaxial in the documentation.
Click to expand...

If you do that.. check into laptops with newer series gpu's with hdmi out's. I think some may be able to output dts-hd and true-hd over hdmi.
 
I think I need to find one with optical out because my TV won't pass 5.1 through via HDMI. It downgrades it to stereo.

Is optical out an uncommon feature for a laptop to have?

Maybe I should just consider a USB sound card if the optical out thing is going to limit my options. I'm on a $700 budget for the laptop.
 
YellowSnow said:
I think I need to find one with optical out because my TV won't pass 5.1 through via HDMI. It downgrades it to stereo.

Is optical out an uncommon feature for a laptop to have?

Maybe I should just consider a USB sound card if the optical out thing is going to limit my options. I'm on a $700 budget for the laptop.
Click to expand...

yeah.. sounds the way to go since your limited by your htib. just noticed it didn't have hdmi input's either.
 
The TV and HTiB have some seriously annoying aspects, but I got them for an insanely low package price, and the TV has a gorgeous picture so I live with it. I should have sold the HTiB and never even opened it and just bought a better one, but like I said, I'm on a budget.

Thanks for your help.
 
keenan said:
I suspect it will do the same with S/PDIF. Have you tried it?
Click to expand...

It absolutely will...if I run it through the TV. I have a cheap optical splitter that I use to connect all of my source devices (PS3, DVR, etc.) directly (bypassing the TV) into the single optical in, on my HTiB. My whole goal in this thread was to connect the new laptop the same way (optical)...and find out if my laptop actually might support this out of the box...

Last night I watched a 1080p rip for the first time from this laptop to my TV/HTiB via HDMI.

Honestly it's not the end of the world that the signal that the HTiB gets from the TV is stereo. It still sounds really good.

At this point, I'll probably just live with it until I find a cheap USB sound card or a much better deal on a laptop (if I can find one in the next week or so, before my 30 day satisfaction warranty is up).
 
You can get a USB->optical dongle for a couple bucks on eBay.

Pretty annoying if they sold it as having optical out but it won't. Weird that the Windows UI prevents you from choosing an output that it thinks is not connected, but my desktop machine does the same. Kind of annoying to be honest.
 
Thanks, Keenan, Can you recommend one specifically that will be good? I want to be sure that the sound card output doesn't lag behind the video output. That would make watching movies a bad experience. Obviously it needs to support at least 5.1 surround sound to make it worthwhile.

As for what it was sold with, just like my previous laptop, it just states that the headphone jack also supports "SPDIF"...but I was blown away how hard it is to find out what that actually means...as in what type of media (cable) to use with it. Obviously tech support was either wrong about the cable type, or right about it being broken. I'm leaning toward the former.
 
The only USB S/PDIF hardware I've used is the M-Audio Transit and a device I built and designed myself. The Transit is very good, but much more than you need to spend for this, I imagine one of the $5 cards like this one will be fine, they all use essentially the same hardware and are USB audio class compliant so you shouldn't need any drivers: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-6-Channel-5...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ad03e4c3

Those mini jack to S/PDIF devices are pretty common, but I've never really heard of anyone actually using it. Wouldn't surprise me if the specsheet said it was there but the hardware wasn't lol.
 
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magnetik said:
coax can carry 5.1 digital just fine. If the soundcard output does it is another story. Since it appears you don't have coax digital inputs.. You can still get the adapter at any local radio shack. Make sure it's a 3.5 mono to rca then get the coax to optical converter from monoprice. I don't think it was too much. I've done the same thing with a midiman co2. (which is now maudio)
Click to expand...

I might still go this route. The adapter (coax to optical) is only $11.72 from Monoprice. The S/PDIF Adapter, 3.5mm MONO Plug to RCA Mono Jack is only $0.61.

I'll be pissed if neither optical nor coax works though.
 
It will not be a coax output from the 3.5mm jack. These are always optical + analog (on a laptop anyway, unless it has a dedicated jack for s/pdif).
 
No worries. But I take it that you concur with keenan, that these 3.5mm combo jacks on laptops are always optical? So there probably is a hardware issue at work here?
 
have you checked in the bios to see if there's something in there other than enable disable? I still think that if it was optical you should have a light regardless. That is the right cable if it's supposed to be optical. I can't even find the option to disable digital outs in 7 like with xp. That's also assuming you have the right drivers.

Also.. this is what my properties look like.. what does your say under "jack information" ?

sound.jpg
 
magnetik said:
have you checked in the bios to see if there's something in there other than enable disable? I still think that if it was optical you should have a light regardless. That is the right cable if it's supposed to be optical. I can't even find the option to disable digital outs in 7 like with xp. That's also assuming you have the right drivers.

Also.. this is what my properties look like.. what does your say under "jack information" ?

sound.jpg
Click to expand...

Mine says the same thing:

http://www.wrxfanatics.com/uploads/monthly_04_2010/post-781-1271900349.png

The computer knows when I plug in the mini optical cable (see popup in bottom left), but the driver says it's not plugged in. :|

Oh, and I checked in the Bios and it's very limited...nothing about the optical/SPDIF or anything relevant.
 
Mine doesn't actually read spdif like yours, but the option to set the realtek digital output as default is greyed out...since it's "unplugged".
 
Fixed it! I can't believe it, but the MSI forum actually proved useful. I also can't believe I didn't think of this...Realtek HD Audio Manager from the Control Panel.

There's a small folder icon in the top right. Click it and you can you are prompted with a single check box that, when checked, creates a popup when you plug something into one of the audio ports. I checked the box and next time I plugged in the mini Toslink cable, I was prompted to indicate what type of cable it was. I clicked SPDIF and bam, red light turns on.

It's all gravy now. Thanks to those of you that tried to help. :)
 
Last edited:
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