Trouble with Speaker 5.1 +Vista + Asus P5k Motherboard. No Rear Speaker sound

Hi Perseo,


If you run through a speaker test in windows, and hear playback from all 5 speakers and the subwoofer, then your system is correctly connected, and working properly.

Vista uses a layered sound system that renders sound a bit differently than what you're used to on your previous system. As a result, it will most often refuse to project stereo sources in 5-channel surround, on it's own. it will just play them as stereo, and the bass will fill in whenever it can.

One possible way you could use to get around this, is to force the system to use all 5 speakers, through the driver. If you're using a realtek onboard card anything like mine (I have a p5k-VM board myself), this can be done by opening up the HD Audio Manager, and selecting the "Speaker Fill" option, under the Speaker Configuration" tab.

another option would be to load your media player you use to play music or movies, and see if there's an option to change speaker settings within the programs.

hope this helps!

The rear speakers don't work issue is a big one on a lot of forums and I had it too. I'm using Windows 7 but I remember Vista had the same issue. Anyways, when no solution worked for me, with a combination of fortunate accident and intentional experimentation, I chanced upon a solution.

I discovered that once you get to the stage (install, uninstall, play with versions of Realtek drivers and you'll get there) where the Windows Configuration produces sound from all four or five of your speakers but you can't hear sound from your rear speakers in other applications, Windows is actually channeling the sound to your front audio port or jack or whatever it's called. For me, this was the configuration when I experienced this:

Back port: The two front and rear cables were connected but I could hear no sound from my rear speakers

Front port: I had connected my headphone and microphone because I was also trying to do something else

And suddenly, I was getting sound from my FRONT SPEAKERS and also in my HEADPHONE. So I unplugged the headphone and plugged the rear-speakers' cable into the front jack. So now the front speakers were connected to the back of the CPU and the rear ones to the front (but I assume it works the other way too) and I was getting sound in all of my speakers. Unless I was hallucinating.

Try it guys.