Realtek Hi Def Audio has no sound for X540 5.1 rear two speakers

Question

Hello-I have an Idea Centre K430 Desktop running Win8.1Update1-64bit,IE11,12 GB Memory and 1 TB HDD. I have X540 Logitech 5.1 speakers installed. I recently installed Realtek Hi Def Audio Driver 2.75. After installing this driver.I observed that my speaker system was reduced from a 5.1 system to a 3.1 system. I tried  adjusting different settings in the Lenovo HD Audio Manager without correcting the rear two speakers' sound problem. I switched spear configurations.Quadaphonic produced sound on the two front and rear speakers and no sound on the front middle speaker. I swithed to th 7.1 configuration and received sound on the 5.1 configuation. I do not have the two other speakers required for a 7.1 configuration. I am convinced that my speakers are working and there is something wrong with my 2.75 driver download. I deleted  my previous 2.75 driver and re-installed the 2.75 driver from Realtek's download site. Thanks.
Carl W Lesesne

Answer 1

Not all is lost, however. Your sound card *can* output surround sound (already encoded) from a DVD, by enabling pass-through. I'm looking at my drivers in entertainment mode, and you would enable "Dolby Digital Bitsream Out: On" on the Dolby Digital page. Same thing on the DTS page.
I know I had my Audigy 2 ZS hooked up to both the analog and digital ports on my receiver, and to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference. I'm sure the X-Fi would be give the same result. If your receiver does not have analog 5. inputs, then you are SOL. If they do, however, then there really is no degradation using the analog inputs. Really expensi've receivers ($000+) have top quality DACs, but the ones on the X-Fi (to the best of my knowledge) are as good if not better than the DACs on any standard receiver. The digital data needs to be converted to analog somewhere, and it doesn't really matter if its done by the card, or by the receiver. I would highly suggest doing what I said - hook up your X-Fi to both the analog and digital ports simultaneously, and switch between the two while playing some stereo music. If you are happy with the analog output's sound, then just go analog. Forget the myth that digital has to be better. Its only better if the DACs are better, and they probably aren't.
EDIT I just noticed you were talking about an Audigy 2 ZS, but all this still applies. Enabling pass-through may be a bit different, and I can't remember exactly how since I had already determined the analog outs sounded good and I didn't bother keeping the digital connected using my Aud2ZS.Message Edited by opozoid on 0-2-2005 06:40 AM