Need a new sound card for my laptop, help please

I have an Alienware m15x laptop set up as a home theater PC, I didnt originaly buy this for this purpose but eventualy I got married and set up my own home theater and was in the market for a home theater pc, even planed on building one on my own when I realised the 4gb ram laptop would be more than beefy enough for the task, since it has a good cpu, enough ram and the most important thing, a good video card with HDMI out that supports 1080p.

So I set it up with a few external hard drives and it even looks great under all my other devices (much better than a desktop HTPC would) and just when everything was working great, I noticed something.. I wasnt getting full on 7.1 sound. I have both my computer and my ps3 connected to the AMP via HDMI and with the ps3 I get great 7.1 sound, with blu-rays and what not.

After trying every driver out there, 3 different operating systems (you heard me right, Vista 32, Vista 64 and Windows 7 64) and all sorts of different HDMI cables, I realised no matter what I do, the computer probably just doesnt have that good digital sound output, even if the realtek soundcard is supposed to be 7.1

So now I am in the market for an external 7.1 soundcard, one preferably with several types of inputs/outputs, I have seen several on the web but they are from strange brands and are way too cheap to be anything other than crap and if I look at soundblaster cards, they have a good pci express card but I think that only goes up to 5.1 and they also have a USB external card but it also goes up to 5.1, all their 7.1 stuff is for desktops only.

So here I am, at the mercy of all you smarter people than me, do you have a device in mind that could help me?

I do get good sound from the laptop and all and to be honest, I don't need it that badly as I end up watching most of my movies directly from my ps3 than from my HTPC (mkv2vob, yay!) and for tv I already have a dedicated DVR device so its not like my whole home theater experience revolves around my home theater pc, therefore changing the whole computer isn't really an option, not to mention this laptop was very expensive and ended giving me more problems than what it was worth so I am happy I am now getting some use out of it. I dont even watch tv in it, I just use it for downloaded movies (for which I already own a copy of course.. "cough") and for surfing the web on the big screen, and also for whenever I play a pc game that doesnt require any type of fast movement like a FPS or something like that, it looks great on the big screen, the video card is great but the sound coming out of the HDMI port leaves much to be desired.

Well, I am open to all your sugestio

 

with 5.1/7.1 and hdmi your entire chain, from source material through all of the hardware and software and the eventual output devices (audio and video), has to be hdmi/drm certified to pass full fidelity (again, both audio and video).

If you are sure that you have a system that is in fact hdmi/drm capable end to end except for your audio card, then have a look at the various usb audio sp/dif dongles available.

search here, google, and the product listings at newegg.com are all useful resources.

 

You can still get all 8 channels even through an unprotected chain. It's just downsampled to CD quality at most

 

I used a Creative X-Fi Notebook Express card 54 with a 5.1/7.1 extension dock and it worked fine for both 5.1 and 7.1. Thats an ExpressCard 54 expansion card for laptops, aka NOT external.

 

Well I use very different types of source material but lets say a bluray, I use true theater to play them and the connection is via toslink, I am not sure how much more enclosed I can keep the whole thing but I could use help and your knowledge as to all this ¨HDMI certified thing, I thought it was as simple as connecting to your AMP or TV via the hdmi cable.

As for the Creative X-Fi Notebook Express card, I thought this card only did 5.1, so you say it does 7.1? what extension dock did you use? how did you connect it to your 7.1 set up.

 

Well the actual card has a connector for a docking module that came with it at the time of purchase. The module had analog inputs for your front, left and right, surround, and side speakers.

Features:
-X-Fi Crystalizer to restore sound clarity and vibrance of mp3 files
-X-Fi CMSS-3D to upmix stereo channels into surround sound, even over headphones
-Dolby DTS support
-Outputs: Line/Headphone/Optical Digital
-Inputs: Line/Mic/Optical Digital
-5.1/7.1 docking module for full analog connectivity with home theatre systems
-Playback: Stereo/Surround 24 bit/96 kHz, SPDIF out 24 bit/96 kHz
-Recording: 24 bit/96 kHz

 

This is what u want to get although from what i've heard Creative's driver support isn't all that great... but it is one of the best options on the market..

 

wow Thanks for the pics vlad, those helped a lot, I see what you mean now.

Sean, I think it is what I will probably end up geting, I use a 7.1 klipsch system on my tv room, I need to check if the amp has the 3 input connectivity for analog 7.1, I am sure it has to..

 

well i'm not against u buying it but i just wanted to point out the drivers may be doggy... its been a problem with creative from the start.. That Singapore company has excellent products and a innovator in its field but drivers really let it down.

 

After doing some research it appears that my laptop doesnt really support any decent audio through the HDMI port, in fact some people believed it didnt support audio at all, just video, I managed to get audio out from it but nothing over 16k, CD sound, I really want to go 7.1 so I guess I should buy that little thing.. I hope

 

Well, as sean473 pointed out, the drivers might be upsetting at times, especially those times when you are installing them and setting everything up for the first time. I have never had any issues personally, but many people have so i think i just got lucky. This is a trade-off - you get the connectivity and the surround sound support in a mobile simple package but have to fiddle around with the drivers.

 

OK this is a continuation to my original post, thanks to what you fine people told me here, I went out and bought myself a x-fi sound card express card for laptops but I was in such a rush that I didnt notice till I got home that the only cable it comes with is a pair of headphones! thats it! and the only inputs it has is for mic and for headphones/line in.

I am not very good at sound related things.. can anybody explain to me how I can go from a headphone/line out jack to a 7.1 amp? Will I get enough quality from this?

 

WelL i think the easiest thing in your case to do would be to go ahead and buy the dock cause that will give you 6-channel direct sound otherwise you might find yourself looking strangely at a toss-link cable and the optical out on the express card realizing that the two dont fit together and need an (?) adapter.