Getting surround sound to work on a new PC.

zombygeek

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I recently just bought a new PC with an AMD Radeon 6670 Graphics card in it. It says it has an integrated sound chip capable of 7.1 surround sound.

Today I just got an optical cable to test this out. My set up is the following:

PC---(hdmi)---HDTV---(optical)---Surround Sound

As much as I can get out of it is front left, center, front right, and sub speakers. I can't get my rear speakers to work at all.

When using my set up like this:

Xbox---(hdmi)---HDTV---(optical)---Surround Sound

Everything works perfectly. So I know it's my computer.

My computer came with a thing called "VIA HD Audio Deck" where it would let me configure my speaker configuration, but that's for the audio ports where I would plug in my headphones, and not for the Graphics Card with sound chip integrated. When in windows I found an option to "configure" my "AMD HDMI Output" it asks which option is best for me, but the only option listed is "Stereo"

In the catalyst control center, it mentions nothing about sound at all..

I really don't know what to do. I've searched the Gigabyte website for drivers and utilities but found nothing.

EDIT:

OS: Windows 7 X64 Home Premium

Also, the only way I can get my the "AMD HDMI Output" as default, is if I disable the audio ports, which means I wouldn't be able to plug in my headphones if I wanted to. That's also pretty annoying.
 
Last edited:
You need to go to Control Panel > Sound > Select the audio device and click configure, set for Stereo, click next, then set for Surround.
 
Which audio device did you select? What audio devices are you able to select?
 
one is called "AMD HDMI Output" and the other i can't remember the name of. i'm not currently at home so i'll look when i get there, but i do remember that it's for the headphone jack

EDIT: you probably meant did i select stereo or surround, right? It only showed "Stereo Speakers" and "Surround Speakers". But the "Surround Speakers" option was grayed out.

I can upload screenshots later if you'd like
 
No need for a screenshot, I have the same selection on my sound properties. The integrated sound chip that is capable of 7.1 output should have several audio output ports. You can't use the headphone jack and get surround, you have to use the 6 or so ports on the back.
 
My GPU only has HDMI, VGA, and DVI ports. No audio ports. In the specifications here:

AMD Radeon

it says:

Integrated HD audio controller
Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI or DisplayPort with no additional cables required
Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats

Could it be that my surround sound system isn't supported? There is a DTS logo on my surround sound receiver so I'd guess it would be compatible, but I guess I could be wrong.
 
The device that the HDMI is going to should have several plugins for audio and not just one. What type of connections go from your HDMI connected device to the Surround sound system?
 
after more searching around the web, i learned sometimes computers recognize the tv speakers instead of the surround sound speakers, which would be why i'm only hearing 2.1 and only getting the option for stereo on windows 7.. would there be a way to force audio to 5.1?
 
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