USB Soundcard woes!!! Some help!

[djglenn]

I decided to use my old system as a media center... so far working fine, with running the sound through a normal headphone jack. A friend of mine suggested to use an optical out as I would then get perfect 5.1 sound through my sony surround sound (DAV-SR1).

I bought a Creative Live 24bit External sound card, for which I installed the latest (vista) drivers. The normal aux line worked fine.

I then tried the optical cable (digital out from the sound card, to digital in on my surround).....NOTHING.

I have pretty much change every conceivable setting known to man to try and get this to work, but no joy...

Has anyone tried this set-up before? any advice? anything I should try? Its not the cable as I have tried two (and they worked with my PS2 - through the same digital in port).

[Thorsson]

Creative. Vista. USB. Not a setup I'd choose. Hope someone has an idea.

[djglenn]

Worth trying XP on the machine to see if it works?

[prehensile]

so headphone etc sound output is ok , it's the optical that fails?

other optical systems work throught the speaker?

you have enabled the optical switches on the spks?

what do the creative control panels look like?

sorry have to eliminate the different elements

[freddie]

best thing to do is go to the creative web page and see any incompatibility issues, there might be a workaround or an updated driver. Otherwise stick to your older settings until a reliable driver comes out, dont stress yourself too much trying to solve Vista problems!

[shaithis]

The problem is, even if you get sound working via the optical, you won't get 5.1 sound, only stereo - seems the vista drivers have issues passing DD5.1/DTS to the optical.

You need to select the digital interface in the playback devices of vista (should be a right-click on the speaker icon on the taskbar IIRC)

If that doesn't work, buy an Asus Xonar. No hassle, no fuss, just works (even in vista).

[djglenn]

Ok, well I reinstalled XP onto the PC...and wham, works first time...

Not sure if I have 5.1 working...but it does sound alot better than before.

Thanks guys for the help