Trouble with surround sound.

[[H]eckel]

I am having trouble getting my audio to play through the proper channels. It seems as if my computer is only outputting to the one audio jack for front right and left.

I have a Sound Blaster Audigy SE paired with a Logitech Z-5450 5.1 speaker set connected with 6 ch direct analog connections.

I don't think it has anything to do with the sound card though, because I was experiencing the same thing with my on board realtek sound.

Windows is set to 5.1.

When I use Creative's speaker settings app and do a test it plays the center and rear channels through the front left and right speakers. Nothing is being output to the other two analog jacks on the sound card.

I have got it working temporarily a couple of times. The first time I used drivercleaner to remove all old audio drivers and software for realtek and creative, disabled my onboard sound, and reinstalled the Creative drivers. This worked for a little while and for some reason it stopped working at some point again.

The second time, I reinstalled windows xp from scratch with the onboard sound disabled and it worked for a while. I just noticed today that it stopped working again.

I wonder if there is a component or application that I am installing that is conflicting with this?

Other devices that I have that create sound devices include my Logitech webcam with a built in mic, and my bluetooth adapter that creates audio devices for the headset profile.

Could these devices be causing conflicts?

I have fought with this for weeks now and I am very frustrated. I spent a lot of money on these speakers so I could have surround sound and I can't seem to get it working consistently. If only I could put my finger on what is causing this issue....

Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[HSE]

Chances are it's a problem with the webcam:

http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5271

 

[[H]eckel]

Thank you very much for that link. I wish I would have come across that a few weeks ago. I suspected it had something to do with one of my other devices, but I didn't know why or which one.

I did try disabling the AEC thing, but I had to install the QuickCam software before I could even find an option to disable it. All I had were the basic webcam drivers loaded. When I did disable it, the sound still wasn't working properly. Maybe a reboot would have fixed it, but I went ahead and uninstalled the camera completely just to make sure that is what I was dealing with and after a reboot, sound is working as it should be.

I don't use my webcam often, so I can live without it. Maybe I will work on getting everything to play well together later on, but I'm just happy my sound is working again.

Thanks again. I really appreciate the help.

By the way, how did you come across this article so quickly? Do I just suck at Google?