5.1 Speakers on M17

Let me say first that I am new to the forums and have been looking everywhere for a solution to this dilemma, so if there is a better place to post or another thread already dealing with this, then please direct me to wherever that may be.

Onto the problem. So I recently purchased an M17 because my very old desktop finally died and living at a college dorm I needed a mobile solution so I can game and work at home and school. Now when at school I plan to connect the laptop to my 24' external monitor and mouse n keyboard all which I had with my old desktop. My new problem though is that while the M17 supports up to 7.1 surround sound it does so only through optical out. Well to my realization I do not have an optical out on my Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 speaker system.

My question is, is there a way to connect the 3 cable's from the back of the speaker system to an optical audio connector?

If anything in this post is wrong/incorrect/stupid please feel free to correct me as I am most willing to improve my knowledge on this new system.

Link for the speaker manual here: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Labs-5300-Computer-Speakers/dp/B00005Z21D

Thank You

 

Link isn't working.

and Hi! Welcome to the forums!

 

yea, i just fixed the link sorry about that.

 

Hmm, the only thing I can think of at the moment is to buy a ExpressCard Sound Card.

-This might help:

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=17751&nav=1

 

I was looking at those, but even then I haven't found any with a three line connection, and plus it just stinks to have to waste the optical line port =/

 

It has a three line connection.

 

That actually might work, thank you very much =)

 

If you have a fixed speaker system (as you do), a Creative DDTS-100 decoder may make more sense (rather than something hanging out of the Express Card Slot).