[stoffer150]

I have x-540 (5.1) speakers and they worked excellent just a couple of days ago. All of a sudden the center and rear speakers stop saying anything when playing from a stereo source (youtube, etc). I know that many people say that surround speakers cant play stereo through all speakers. Mine did though. Of course they didnt play real surround but they were all playing. Now it is only the two front speakers and the sub making noise. When i test the one by one in the configuration they can all play sound (though when i play the sub then sound also comes from center speaker). All the minijacks are correctly plugged in (100% positive). when i watch a dvd/blue-ray with true surround sound all the speakers work fine. when i played WoW or oblivion or other games like that, i would get a nice surround sound. now i only get sound from front, sub and rear in WoW and only front and sub in Rift. all the drivers should be updated. my sound card definitely works for 5.1 sound.

 

[JimE]

Try updating or downgrading the audio drivers. You will also want to verify the audio and speaker configuration and options. If ALL of the speakers work correctly when performing the audio software speaker test, then the hardware and speakers are functioning normally.

Now about surround audio. All Windows audio, mp3's, and most video files are stereo. Stereo is front left/right and sub.

There are several ways to get audio to play in most or all of the speakers. First, the audio software/drivers may have a "surround" option where with front audio is either duplicated to the rear channels or a simulated "surround" is created for all channels (center and rears). Second, the media player can create the channels as noted above. Third, the speaker system can create the channels as noted above.