G73jh only recognises 2 speakers?

Im fairly noobish when it comes to sound, but i recently plugged my laptop into my 5.1 setup and cannot change the configuration in windows to be anything other than a 2 speaker setup.

I used a 3.5mm Stereo Plug/2 RCA Jack Cable and plugged the red and white connectors into the amp.

Anyideas? I know there are much more knowledgeable people on this issue here than i am that can set me straight. This whole ordeal and creative/realtek/x-fi etc just confuses me.

http://i51.tinypic.com/4v4x9z.jpg

 

I'm just going to ballpark this but you're using stereo plugs. Stereo is only 2 channels, use Optical or even better HDMI if you want 5.1. I use HDMI with no issues.

 

You have hit onto something I am going to post on later today, but....

You cannot select anything other than two speaker (stereo sound) on the G73 unless you use a digital output, like the optical or HDMI (Lionheart said). You are using a headphone to RCA cable right? If that is correct you can only output stereo sound with that, so your home threater will never get 5.1 out of it (even if you could enable 5.1 in windows, your headphone jack is limited to stereo only).

Your solutions are...

1) Output Audio via HDMI
2) Buy a mini-toslink cable & output via SPDIF (which is ironically the headphone jack, hence the need for the adapter)
3) Use an external soundcard like Soundblaster X-Fi USB for analog 5.1 output.

Ok, I looked up your home theater in box, it has a optical input, you can use a micro-toslink to connect your headphone jack to the receiver. That will give you surround sound for your movies, but not for your games.

 

Thank you very much for your reply! Very helpful!

Why wont solution number 2 work for games? Is Alchemy meant to be able to enable surround sound in games?

As my amp cant use hdmi and external creative sound cards look a little pricey, I will probably search for a micro-toslink first and see how that goes.

 

The mini-toslink will only output stereo, unless it is dolby digital or DTS. Since your games output PCM, you will only get two channels. I'm looking for solutions myself as I would like a surround headset, but not a gaming one. Something like a mixamp w/quality headphones, but I'll be in the same place you are, only getting stereo source material.

 

You would need Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect to output multichannel over optical/coax SPDIF. Unfortunately, Asus did not license that feature.

 

While most of that just flew right over my head, its unfortunate ASUS doesnt support it.

Is there any workarounds? I would of hoped by this day and age these things would be fairly standard in gaming laptops.

 

If you can get a set of the SRS Realtek drivers to install, that should have the features I mentioned.

 

You are now confusing both us Chastity, break it down to the simple level for us.

Are you saying if you can "find" the realtek drivers they will support it, or that if you can "install" them it will be supported. I get the impression you are implying they cannot be installed correctly because finding them is easy.

 

It's currently a work-in-progress on my end. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

I just got my toslink cable and tested it out. First things first, i had no idea, that even after using a 3.5mm adapter i could no extend the cable length using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm connector. No Audio...silly me! Ideally im going to have to buy one with a few extra metres lead.

After fiddling with the windows audio playback divices i finally got it working by enabling realtek digital output. In playing with some dvds/blurays, Dolby Digital or DTS flashes up on the receiver (or pro logic if im just using windows). Everything SEEMS ok i gues but im not exactly noticing a world of difference. The rear speakers seem way too soft and I really have to be paying attention to them in a movie to even notice them. Does that seem right?

I also tried some 5.1 ac3 mp3s, and they only seem to come out of the left and right speakers. This may be because of a reason chastity stated above however.

Still annoyed that i cant select anything other than a 2 speaker configuration in windows..

Also, is there any way to map the fn f11 and f12 keys (volume up and down) to the optical output? Its annoying i have to keep changing the volume on the receiver.

 

You need to setup your software player to to do perfect bitstreaming over SPDIF, and let the external decoder do it's job.

 

Everything works fine when i try powerdvd now with the correct settings configured.