Not getting 5.1 from system

[tinpanalley]

I have my motherboard outputting a 5.0 signal from my desktop and sent to my multi-channel input. But despite setting games to 5.1, I don't get audio in the rear or center channels. Everything is connected correctly so what can I do to test the channels to see if it's the cables?

[rice guru]

41 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

I have my motherboard outputting a 5.0 signal from my desktop and sent to my multi-channel input. But despite setting games to 5.1, I don't get audio in the rear or center channels. Everything is connected correctly so what can I do to test the channels to see if it's the cables?

your motherboard should have a controller like this which lets you control and test your gear. you might have to update your motherboard's audio drivers in order to get it

[tinpanalley]

Hmm... Ok.

It's a Gigabyte Z68A-D3-B3. I'm having trouble finding audio drivers.

[rice guru]

2 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

Hmm... Ok.

It's a Gigabyte Z68A-D3-B3. I'm having trouble finding audio drivers.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z68A-D3-B3-rev-10#ov his motherboard? I dont think the built in audio for this supports 5.1

[tinpanalley]

12 minutes ago, rice guru said:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z68A-D3-B3-rev-10#ov his motherboard? I dont think the built in audio for this supports 5.1

It does, I have the outputs on the back of the computer and I've been running it with 5.1 for years. I just dont know what happened that I noticed lately it wasn't working.

I've been running analog audio to mu receiver. I recently noticed that it was only sending a 2.0 signal to my receiver where before games did a perfect 5.1. I don't get what to do to bring it back. I tried downloading a codec upgrade for the audio on my mobo and now I've got  the realtek software but ive lost the headphone jack I used to send audio to my computer speakers with.

So confused.

[Derkoli]

7 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

It does, I have the outputs on the back of the computer and I've been running it with 5.1 for years. I just dont know what happened that I noticed lately it wasn't working.

I've been running analog audio to mu receiver. I recently noticed that it was only sending a 2.0 signal to my receiver where before games did a perfect 5.1. I don't get what to do to bring it back. I tried downloading a codec upgrade for the audio on my mobo and now I've got  the realtek software but ive lost the headphone jack I used to send audio to my computer speakers with.

So confused.

What receiver do you have?

[tinpanalley]

38 minutes ago, Derkoli said:

What receiver do you have?

It's a Yamaha HTR-6030.

This was all working perfectly for both videos and games. And I think when I reinstalled Windows months ago I lost the ability to output 5.1 analog to the receiver. The thing is I happen to have only used the audio out in those months for streaming sports and older games we've been playing so it wasn't until this week going back to a game that used to play fine with 5.1 that I noticed I wasn't getting the right audio.

What I have right now is the computer outputting to 'Headphones', which I use for my computer speakers (front panel) and 'Speakers', which are the analog pairs going to my receiver (back panel - pink, green, blue jacks). But what I noticed is that I don't get the Windows application that lets me test the 5 channels.

[rice guru]

40 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

It's a Yamaha HTR-6030.

This was all working perfectly for both videos and games. And I think when I reinstalled Windows months ago I lost the ability to output 5.1 analog to the receiver. The thing is I happen to have only used the audio out in those months for streaming sports and older games we've been playing so it wasn't until this week going back to a game that used to play fine with 5.1 that I noticed I wasn't getting the right audio.

What I have right now is the computer outputting to 'Headphones', which I use for my computer speakers (front panel) and 'Speakers', which are the analog pairs going to my receiver (back panel - pink, green, blue jacks). But what I noticed is that I don't get the Windows application that lets me test the 5 channels.

My 5.1 setup requires more input than the green and blue  so that's why I'm confused as to how you got full 5.1 without using those inputs

[tinpanalley]

11 minutes ago, rice guru said:

My 5.1 setup requires more input than the green and blue  so that's why I'm confused as to how you got full 5.1 without using those inputs

There's a pink, green, and a blue, then also the front panel headphone jack.

What I finally did, which seems to have worked is that I got the latest Realtek Audio drivers for my mobo. They were only for Windows 8.1, but I ran them in compatibility mode. Then, once inside the Realtek software, I was able to unplug and replug the headphone in the Realtek HD audio 2nd output mode I wanted it to be used in, then, switching to the audio mode for "Speakers", I replugged and unplugged each of the three pairs assigning them one by one to the right output.

I think when the Windows reinstall happened, I completely forgot to do anything other than letting the computer just take basic Windows audio drivers. And as I said, since I hadn't been actually using the 5.1 from the computer for months, I hadn't noticed. Nevertheless, this is far far too complicated and should be a simpler setup.

[rice guru]

1 minute ago, tinpanalley said:

There's a pink, green, and a blue, then also the front panel headphone jack.

What I finally did, which seems to have worked is that I got the latest Realtek Audio drivers for my mobo. They were only for Windows 8.1, but I ran them in compatibility mode. Then, once inside the Realtek software, I was able to unplug and replug the headphone in the Realtek HD audio 2nd output mode I wanted it to be used in, then, switching to the audio mode for "Speakers", I replugged and unplugged each of the three pairs assigning them one by one to the right output.

I think when the Windows reinstall happened, I completely forgot to do anything other than letting the computer just take basic Windows audio drivers. And as I said, since I hadn't been actually using the 5.1 from the computer for months, I hadn't noticed. Nevertheless, this is far far too complicated and should be a simpler setup.

as i said it should be simpler because true 5.1 audio require more outputs than the ones your motherboard has as the rear panel audio only has green and blue which is technically only made for 2.1 one for the sub and one for your left and right channels. my 5.1 require 4 1 for sub, one for rear left and right, one for front left and right. and one for centre

[rice guru]

9 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

It does, I have the outputs on the back of the computer and I've been running it with 5.1 for years. I just dont know what happened that I noticed lately it wasn't working.

I've been running analog audio to mu receiver. I recently noticed that it was only sending a 2.0 signal to my receiver where before games did a perfect 5.1. I don't get what to do to bring it back. I tried downloading a codec upgrade for the audio on my mobo and now I've got  the realtek software but ive lost the headphone jack I used to send audio to my computer speakers with.

So confused.

have your tried downloading older  driver versions? or the one your mob came default with

[tinpanalley]

12 minutes ago, rice guru said:

as i said it should be simpler because true 5.1 audio require more outputs than the ones your motherboard has as the rear panel audio only has green and blue which is technically only made for 2.1

No, as I already explained, it also has pink. There is a shared center/subwoofer, a side speaker output, and a surround speaker output.

[rice guru]

Just now, tinpanalley said:

No, as I already explained, it also has pink. There is a shared center/subwoofer, a side speaker output, and a surround speaker output.

pink is for mic input that wont work as a audio output

[Derkoli]

1 hour ago, tinpanalley said:

It's a Yamaha HTR-6030.

This was all working perfectly for both videos and games. And I think when I reinstalled Windows months ago I lost the ability to output 5.1 analog to the receiver. The thing is I happen to have only used the audio out in those months for streaming sports and older games we've been playing so it wasn't until this week going back to a game that used to play fine with 5.1 that I noticed I wasn't getting the right audio.

What I have right now is the computer outputting to 'Headphones', which I use for my computer speakers (front panel) and 'Speakers', which are the analog pairs going to my receiver (back panel - pink, green, blue jacks). But what I noticed is that I don't get the Windows application that lets me test the 5 channels.

Your mobo has optical out and the receiver has optical in so why wouldnt you use that? It would probably sound better. If not i would use DDU to un-install the drivers and then re-install them, also check sound enhancements are disabled in sound settings, and also check the speaker's are configged to be 5.1, also check applications cant take exclusive control of the audio output.

[tinpanalley]

4 minutes ago, rice guru said:

pink is for mic input that wont work as a audio output

Ok, you probably don't want to but if you want, go to the Gigabyte website and get the manual pdf, under 5.1 setup you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not inventing it, I've been running like this for years

[tinpanalley]

3 minutes ago, Derkoli said:

Your mobo has optical out and the receiver has optical in so why wouldnt you use that? It would probably sound better.

It's because I was once told that for some technical reason (digital decoder?) that optical would only output 2.0 from this motherboard. I've tried it, it only does 2.0.

[rice guru]

7 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Ok, you probably don't want to but if you want, go to the Gigabyte website and get the manual pdf, under 5.1 setup you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not inventing it, I've been running like this for years

Holy shit your right. I've never seen this before on any motherboard I've worked on. Albeit most systems I have built have use more modern motherboards so this has never been an issue for me. Sorry I doubted you

[Derkoli]

17 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

It's because I was once told that for some technical reason (digital decoder?) that optical would only output 2.0 from this motherboard. I've tried it, it only does 2.0.

It must not have the compression for optical built in, odd.

[tinpanalley]

1 minute ago, Derkoli said:

It must not have the compression for optical built in, odd.

Hmm..there is one thing I could try... My receiver has no HDMI inputs. So for 5.1 HD video on my computer (but mostly for games) I send HDMI video to my TV for video and these analogs go to the receiver. But I also send my gaming consoles and raspberry pi (both with 5.1) to the TV via HDMI and then simply passthrough their 5.1 audio to the receiver via SPDIF out from the TV itself. That allows me to send 5.1 to the receiver via optical to deal with the lack of HDMI inputs on the receiver.

So, what I'm thinking is... What if I sent video AND audio from my GPU to the TV via HDMI, which is already hooked up and which I already do for video, then I could ouput the audio via optical through my tv like with the other devices. The only question is if there isnt some problem with windows sending 5.1 from my GPU (AMD R9 280). Does that sound like it would work?

[Derkoli]

2 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Hmm..there is one thing I could try... My receiver has no HDMI inputs. So for 5.1 HD video on my computer (but mostly for games) I send HDMI video to my TV for video and these analogs go to the receiver. But I also send my gaming consoles and raspberry pi (both with 5.1) to the TV via HDMI and then simply passthrough their 5.1 audio to the receiver via SPDIF out from the TV itself. That allows me to send 5.1 to the receiver via optical to deal with the lack of HDMI inputs on the receiver.

So, what I'm thinking is... What if I sent video AND audio from my GPU to the TV via HDMI, which is already hooked up and which I already do for video, then I could ouput the audio via optical through my tv like with the other devices. The only question is if there isnt some problem with windows sending 5.1 from my GPU (AMD R9 280). Does that sound like it would work?

This would work. Your GPU has hdmi, even hdmi 1.0 can carry a full 8 channels of uncompressed audio so this would work aslong as the GPU is set as the audio output device.

[tinpanalley]

I'll give it a go today. I'll report back.

[tinpanalley]

Just an add-on question, does anyone know why my GPU shows six "Digital Display Audio" devices? They're all named "AMD High Definition Audio Device".