Windows 7 5.1 surround sound issues windows 7

[spudnash]

I have recently upgraded from windows XP Home to Windows 7 Home Premium. In XP I had no problem getting all my audio to come out of my 5.1 surround speakers and all was dandy. Ever since I upgraded I have faced the issue of various applications not making use of all channels.

Namely: WMP/iTunes/Windows plays audio through left and right only, not centre rear left or rear right. (This was never a problem before the upgrade to 7)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 however does use all channels and I get a good gaming experience just like I did before.

I have tried doing an auto driver update, only for windows to tell me the drivers are up to date. I have tried using the disk that came with my motherboard to find that it isnt supported in this version of windows. And I have played around with every combination of settings in the sound control panel to no effect.

What is pretty stupid though, is that when "testing" the speaker configuration in control panel, the dinging noises all come out of the correct speakers at the correct time, so why doesnt any other sound from windows do this? There must be an answer and I'm determined not to have to buy a new sound card (and having read around it seems that even creative sound cards dont have a lot of luck with windows 7)

PS in terms of my hardware, I think I have built in Realtek, however my software disk wants to install "SoundMAX" software. My Motherboard is an ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe.

 

[baerwb]

Possible Work Around

I was having the problem with Windows 7 64 Premium. I found this work around for my Realtek Realtek ALC883 on a forum about a Creative soundcard, it worked for me, if you have more than 4 GB of RAM this probably isn't a good solution for you, but if you only have 4 GB then 1 MB less RAM to solve the audio problem is worth it. I've rewritten the instructions to apply to the Realtek issue:

:WORKAROUND:

You can use this as a temporary work around until it is resolved by MS or Realtek, without removing memory (RAM) physically (which also resolves this problem).

1) Uninstall all Realtek Drivers
2) Uninstall the High Definition Audio Controller under Device Manager > System Devices
3) Run MSCONFIG from Start Menus
4) select the boot tab
5) select advanced options
6) under max memory select 4095 (or any value under 4 GB is fine IE anything less than 1024 * 4)
7) Restart Computer
8) Go into audio preferences and set whatever device you are using as Default (usually this will be Digital Audio (S/PDIF (High Definition Audio Device)

9) Enjoy working sound!

 

[Athlonite]

your mistaken for thinking the M3A32 has a realtek sound chip it does not it actually has an Analog Devices AD1988B @ ATI SB600 - High Definition Audio Controller which is the Soundmax Audio device that your CD wants to install but don't it's not very stable under win7 ... Your better off going to the Asus website and downloading these one instead they are for win7

http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/audio/AD1988AB_Audio_V6585_XpVistaWin7.zip