speaker problems with Windows 7 64-bit

[nice_shoes]

I've had problems with the 4-speaker quadrophonic audio, especially when playing a You-Tube video, or also when playing songs in .wma format.

 

The problem is that I cannot get the rear speakers to play........I have a Realtek ALC887 and used the Realtek software to configure the system for quadrophonic sound. Using the Realtek software, I can hear the sounds from all 4 speakers one-by-one as the software does a sound test.

 

But, when I play a You-Tube video I only get sound through the 2 front speakers, and not getting any sound at all from Windows Media Player, which actually starts to play a song, but has no sound at all, and under the "play-to" button, the drop-down shows "No media devices found".

 

Need a strategy to troubleshoot this..........might be 2 separate problems 1) no sound from Windows Media Player and 2) only front channel speakers from You-Tube.

[Waco]

If you really want quadraphonic it's probably easier to use a splitter for the front output. I had issues way back with Vista doing the same thing.

[nice_shoes]

Waco, I think you are correct...........I guess a "headphone splitter" should probably do the job. I'll give it a try. Thanks for the advice.

[nice_shoes]

after thinking about this for a while, I don't think that a headphone splitter is the answer.

 

Here is my setup:

• I have 2 small computer speakers that are plugged into the green (front) audio out jack on the motherboard.........these are my front speakers.
• Also, I have 2 different small speakers that are plugged into the black (rear) audio out jack............these are my rear speakers.

 

So, this is not a single quadraphonic system from a single manufacturer, rather it is 2 separate stereo speaker systems that are connected as a quad system, I don't think that that should make a difference.

 

When I use the "Asus Realtek HD Audio Manager" program, I set the speaker configuration for Quadraphonic, and then hit the "test" button, and everything works well............the software plays a sound through each of the 4 speakers (one speaker at a time) and I hear the sound through each speaker in the correct order.

 

So, I believe that my hardware is set up and configured correctly.............the problem is that not any of my other programs utilize the rear speakers..........the front speakers are working, but I get no sound through the rear speakers.............yet when I then run the Audio Manager program and do the test, then all 4 speakers are working.

 

So, do I need to tell Windows 10 to use quadraphonic sound, or tell Windows 10 to route everything through the Realtek software, or something similar?

 

I'm not having any luck trying to figure this out.

[SpikeSoprano]

The problem could be the files you are playing are only using a codec that plays in stereo, download a flac mucic file and see if it uses all the speakers. Also, why are you still using wmp ? VLC player is free and will play many more file types, video and audio.

 

Edit> I'm confused,what os are you using, w7 or w10 ?

Edited June 5, 2016 by SpikeSoprano

[nice_shoes]

I will look for VLC player and give it a try................please forgive my confusion, but what is a "flac mucic file"?

 

Also, I updated my sig to show Windows 10 64-bit

[bp9801]

I will look for VLC player and give it a try................please forgive my confusion, but what is a "flac mucic file"?

 

Also, I updated my sig to show Windows 10 64-bit

 

FLAC file. It's a lossless audio file, so if you save a CD in FLAC and then restore that data, you get the exact same quality as the CD. If you save the same CD as MP3 and try to restore it, you can't get that quality back. It's open-source, too, which is always nice. FLAC also supports a maximum of eight channels, which is why Spike said to try and find some music files that way to test your setup.

 

When you play a game, do you get audio from the four speakers or just the front two?

[SpikeSoprano]

BP gave you the proper answer to flac files (thanks BP ), just one more point, you will need vlc player to play flac files as it's one of the many files wmp won't play .