# X-FI: Getting 5.1 speakers to work correctly...



## -Veditor- (Jan 31, 2007)

I'll start off by saying that I'm not too familiar with audio. I recently built a new cpu and bought for it an X-FI Fatal1ty addition sound card and with it Logitech's x-540 5.1 speakers.

I installed the card and drivers and hooked up the speakers and everything seemed to work, but testing the speakers in the cards control center ( set at 5.1) showed me that only the two front speakers were working, as if it were still set to 2.1. 

The weird thing is that when I play music it sounds OK and comes out of all five speakers. When I play games though (world of warcraft :normal: ) it sounds horrible, as if the speakers are not working together.

So I troubleshooted and found that when I unplug the black speaker wire from the card and the orange and leave in the green it makes no change. The speakers still work as before. All the audio seems to be coming through the green line ( front speakers ).

The weird thing is that when I put the green in the black spot I hear the audio in the rear speakers, and the center/sub I hear it from there. But when I put the correct colors where they go I hear nothing. In other words the green line seems to be the only one that works and the black and orange don't do anything.

So is my card not configured correctly? i reduced my hardware acceleration but that didn't seem to do much. Any other suggestions? :4-dontkno


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## -Veditor- (Jan 31, 2007)

I've looked into it a bit more and heard that most cards play out as 2.1 to sattelites and you need a 5.1 source for it to play correctly?

Can anyone just explain to me how this all works? I'm a video editor so audio isn't exactly my thing :smile:


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## Spriggan43 (Apr 3, 2006)

you wont to enable some options in the x-if control panel like EAX and CMSS-3D for games that have only 2.1... if wow has option to enable eax turn it on..


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## Spriggan43 (Apr 3, 2006)

and all so update your drivers..makes big diff


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## JorisS (Jan 19, 2007)

I'll try and explain for as far as I know how things work; and from my experience in struggling with various Soundblaster cards and speaker systems.

Many games, as well as music, aren't 5.1, but only stereo. A subwoofer frequency is always easily filtered out and fed to it so the subwoofer will usually not cause any problems, it'll work. But the other channels, that's a matter of connecting, setting up and decoding properly.

Like Home Cinema receivers, your card can decode and simulate, i.e. create Dolby Logic from Stereo by means of filtering the front channels and sending to the satellites and front. 

However, if I'm not mistaken, if you have things set up correctly and you are in the test center, you should definately get the sound from each speaker when testing with the signals. I'm a bit confused as to how you can get sound from your satellites (rear and front) when unplugged, but on second thought I'm guessing your Logitech system actually has it's own decoder?



> Matrix mode
> Creates 5.1 surround-sound effect from 2-channel stereo sources.


From Logitech page.

I think you're going to have to experiment with settings such as SPDIF bypass on/off, or especially the settings in Entertainment Mode for DTS and Dolby out; in those menus you can either select On - External Decoder or Off - Built-in Decoder. I'm not sure whether that Logitech speaker set has dolby decoding, so try with the bitstream out 'Off', i.e. built-in decoder.

Then configure everything set up for 5.1 speakers and run a test with the test signals again.


I only use the Bitstream Out = ON for when i play through my Home cinema receiver, which is fed through the optical output from the front drive bay. If you use all the connections on the main card for front/center/rear I think you have to go with the 5.1 setting in speaker menu, and the Bitstream out = OFF using internal decoder.


You can't really break anything, so keep experimenting and see what happens. But like I said at start, when properly configured, you SHOULD hear the sound coming from each proper canal.

For testing with external material, use DVD's which you are sure have Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1.


Hope the above helps somewhat... it's all not that 100% clear to me, but through experimenting I found my way. More or less. I'm still getting problems when switching between the different modes sometimes. I have, by the way, the Fatal1ty X-Fi as well. I'm not sure whether the different methods have hard limitations, but for anything but gaming I run in Entertainment mode.

You could try by clicking 'Default' before you start changing and testing, in my case that actually solved me not getting any sound the other day. Don't know what the exact problem was, couldn't even see the difference in the settings afterwards but suddenly my sound was back and working properly.


Good luck!
There's lots to read on this on soundblaster site as well I think.

Just make sure you're soundcard and speaker system are cooperating, rather than both trying to do the same job and hence causing problems.


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## NorthernLights (Mar 25, 2008)

JorisS is on the right track, sure no one has put a reply on this string for almost a year but i had this problem as well.
Amd 64x dual core +5300 2.4 crossfire asus x1950 x2. 4 gigs of ram, m2r34-mvp asus motherboard with logitech 5.1 speaker system on the Creative x-fi Xtreamgamer Fatality professional

the quote that Joriss made about the Logitech " Matrix mode " is a 5.1 en-coding but built for those of you with 2/2.1 sound cards (witch normally have only 3 jacks atleast in my experience) . to make it work properly i just disable the matrix button sitting right next to the physical volume knob, and BAM my 5.1 encoding form the x-fi works perfectly no cracking, and no more work for 1 hour then stop with a high pitch wine till you restart. I never came across game lag from this card either then again i built my machine to be a High Performance/Gamer enthusiast peace of art =)


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