Only 2 speakers on SPDIF out

A

Aceball

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Im setting up my new KT8 Neo and have run into a minor problem. I opted not to get a sound card off the bat becuase of the SPDIF coaxial and optical outputs. Anyway, when either of these are connected, only my front left and right speakers work. When testing the speakers, I get nothing out of clicking the rears, the center or the sub. Also, when I open the volume control panel on the system tray, the SPDIF column is available, but its greyed out, so I cant adjust the sound. I know its not my speakers, because I was using SPDIF coaxial from an SB Live Platinum on another computer without problems. Ive updated to the latest drivers too. Anyone got any ideas? I really dont want to shell out 200 bones for an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum :nono:
 
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All Coax/Optical s/pdif connections only support Stereo PCM output.

If you play a DVD or something with an AC3 stream AND you have the s/pdif cable connected to a Dolby Digital/AC3 decoder (or a receiver with one builtin), THEN you will get 5.1

The nForce/nForce2 are a special case as they actually encode all PCM audio from the PC into an AC3 stream which then gets decoded by your receiver. However, the realtek codec, Audigy, nforce3, etc. do not support this functionality. For that you'll need an nForce 1 or 2... or possibly one of the Turtle Beach or such cards that uses a software-based digital encoder. The only board I know of like that though is over a year old and only support 4 channel output. And it's not terribly impressive...

Your best bet is to use analog connections. An Audigy 2 ZS and a set of high quality speakers with 6 channel analog connections would be ideal. That's what I use, except right now my speakers are connected to the mobo's sound output because I'm running XP-64... and I don't yet have Audigy 2 drivers to use.
 
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threedaysdwn

"All Coax/Optical s/pdif connections only support Stereo PCM output."

Do you think a soundblaster platinum 5.1 would make it possible to play everything in dolby digital ??? My realtek/KT4V-L only plays 5.1 with AC3 streams, just as you've stated. . .I just got a cheap $69.00 DD5.1 amp and speakers from Wal-Mart (durabrand) that has coax and optical in. . .(no DTS)
 
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