SB Live 5.1 (0060) Rear channel not working..

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 12:59 AM

As the title implies, I just bought a new SB Live 5.1 (Model SB0060) and I'm getting no rear channel audio. I'm also getting bits of static, like slight ticking noises when I play sounds in DXDiag.

If I change the speaker setting to Desktop speakers, I get much better sound quality but I have no rear channel. Then if I set the speakers to headphones (which is what I use) the sound quality seems reduced and I get no center channel.

My reason behind buying this soundcard was due to the onboard nForce2 audio kept giving me static while playing games. Like after a while in the game, the sounds would go all staticky for a while, then the static would go away. The advent of purchasing this new sound card has brought no resolution to that problem. I have tried all sorts of drivers, new and old- before and after this purchase, for all of my hardware components, to no avail..

This has been going on for a few days now and I'm at my witts end here.
I've sent Creative a customer support email, but it's Saturday so I figured I'd try here.

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 01:51 AM

Sorry, system specs as follow:

-A7N8X nForce2 (BIOS Rev. 1007)
-AMD Athlon 2500+XP
-512mb PC2700
-ATi built 9600XT
-Maxtor 80gb/8mb cache
-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1

**dj_stick** · Oct 10, 2004, 02:12 AM

ok for surround sound from stereo things like mp3, you need to activate CMSS in the creative control panel

also in the windows control panel set the speaker settings to 5.1

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 03:42 AM

I didn't get an option to install a Creative control panel, as you call it.

It did install Audio HQ, but I am looking for the Creative PlayCenter app..

Edit: Found it on the Creative site, tried to install, got error message, "No previous version of Creative Playcenter was found. Setup will now exit."

To my knowledge it was the full program, not some upgrade.

*Continues search*

Re-Edit: Ok.. apparently I wrong and I have to download an older version of the program and patch it (that's what the file was initially). Brilliant software, Creative...

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 04:29 AM

Ok, Playcenter is installed and patched. CMSS is enabled.

*drum roll please*

Same shite.

-I put the headphone jack in the hole marked 1 (standard green hole) and in the Creative Surround Mixer and click test I get "Front Left Front Right".

-I put it in the black hole marked 2 and I get "Rear Left Rear Right" and when I put it in the hole marked 3 I get "Center" and nothing else.

I mean, even with the speaker settings at '2 speaker', I get left right and center channels and everything sounds great, but any sounds coming from directly behind me (in-game) sounds different. Like sort of muffled I guess you could say. Is this just a standard characteristic of two speaker audio?

I still get bits of noise too. For example: a slight tick right when a certain sound starts playing or random ticks while the engine sound is playing in one of my flight sims.

classic_leon · Oct 10, 2004, 05:17 AM

I haven't found any problem of your sound card from your post.

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 05:22 AM

Pardon?

classic_leon · Oct 10, 2004, 07:19 AM

You now try to play DVD, check whether there is rear sound.

eLiterate · Oct 10, 2004, 07:35 AM

I don't have a DVD player, bro.

CMSS actually decreases sound quality drastically.

classic_leon · Oct 10, 2004, 07:52 AM

dj_stick has already said .mp3 only had stereo sound only. You don't need to set them to surround through constrainedly using CMSS. Majority that you use surround of your sound card is to play game or DVD. Now you can enable surround, I think it proves your sound card has no problem. You also can try in game, like WarCraft3 while enable EAX2.

eLiterate · Oct 11, 2004, 02:36 AM

This has nothing to do with mp3 audio.

My music sounds great.

It's in-game sound channels that are screwing up.

**dj_stick** · Oct 11, 2004, 03:04 AM

make sure hardware acceleration is at full

eLiterate · Oct 11, 2004, 06:08 AM

It is.

classic_leon · Oct 11, 2004, 06:44 AM

that's ok.

eLiterate · Oct 13, 2004, 06:18 AM

Dude, you aren't helping.

Just an update for everyone else who is: please ignore all past complaints.
The situation now is, every channel is producing sound but the quality of the sound is really poor.
Nothing I have done has helped the quality :\