Problems setting up a Creative Inspire 5500 Digital 5.1 System

Question

Hello! I've had a problem ever since i've owned my Inspire 5500 Digital system whereby I havent had any functionality from the decoder at all. I have only managed toget it working with my pc however the sound played fine (after a lot of tweaking using the Creative software bundled with my soundcard) however I havent been able to connect any other devices to it, they just dont work! Even playing music on the pc, I cant use the decoder volume control etc. Therefore my dillema is as follows, I have recently built a brand new pc and want to reconnect the Inspire's (correctly this time!), I have the following soundcard: X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Soundcard with the following outputs on the back of the card:
Line Out (Green)Line Out 2 (Black)Line Out 3 (Orange)Optical
Below is a breakdown of inputs/outputs of the Inspire 5500 Digital hardware: Decoder Audio Outputs Front (Green hole)Rear (Black hole)Center/subwoofer (orange hole) Decoder Audio Inputs Analog Line In CoaxialOptical Other Sockets DIN Now im going to list whats on the back of the subwoofer: Power Supply4 pin AC power input Satellite Speakers Inputs Front left socket for front left speaker Front right socket for front right speakerRear left socket for rear left speakerRear right socket for rear right speakerCenter socket for centre speaker Audio Inputs Front (Green)Black (Rear)Orange (Centre/subwoofer) Other SocketsDIN Now im going to list the leads that I have that came with the set (so in theory there should be sufficient equipment to get decoder functionality): x 4 Pin Mains lead x Line In Cable with the three heads on each end (green, Black and Orange) x DIN Cable x Optical Cable(Obviously all the satellite speakers have their own leads that plug into the corresponding ports on the back of the subwoofer) The last set up, I had the following:
The 4 pin mains lead plugged into the back of the subwoofer (this is correct as this is the only mains input)
Satellites connections into their corresponding holes
The DIN lead connected the woofer to the decoder
the Line-In lead ran from my soundcard to the back of the decoder
Where can I possibly be going wrong? The decoder powered up and played pc music however I couldnt control the volume from the decoder. I tried connecting my ps2 (with optical out enabled in the ps2 settings) with an optical lead running from the back of my ps2 into the optical input on the back of the decoder but it didnt work either!
If anyone could please help and give me a step by step guide to simply putting the right wires in the right places, that would be fantastic. Its really doing my head in!!
Thanks again!

Answer 1

Try connecting Your three connections fom your sound card (green/black /orange) directly into your subwoofer inputs (green/black/orange), then, of course, your five speakers into the appropriate outputs on your subwoofer. I have the same setup except, I am using the X-FI Elite Pro which has a built in decoder, and I believe yours does too. Now, you can also look at the top of this page and click on "support". then choose "product documentation", then go through the product finder, then click on the download link, and after agreeing to the terms, choose to save the download to a location of your choice on your hard dri've. now if you just click to open the file it might not load properly, so just in case, right click the folder, and choose "Properties", and on the "general" tab click the tab at the bottom that says "Unblock" button, then click OK, this manual will give you every detailed way?to hook up your speaker system. I hope this helped. Good luck!