rear speakers on 5.1 very quiet

[blair]

Hi,

just got some new 5.1 surround speakers and the rear ones are very quiet when playing games if i stand so rear left is where gun fire is coming from is so quiet i have to put my ear next to the speak to even hear it.

I can solve this by changing the RL and RR speaker balance on windows 7 sound options but when ever you change the volume or restart the pc its does not keep what you set just puts them all equal again.

How can i fix this cause atm its just like having 3 speakers at the front and thats it.

 

[nothingspecial]

Are all the speakers plugged into the sub? If so, make sure there's not a switch on there such as "rear dim" that could be cutting the sound. Also worth checking if you can change the levels of the rear channels on the Windows mixer, not just the balance.

 

[blair]

yea they are plugged into sub but cant a find a switch like that

 

[nothingspecial]

There's a setting somewhere in Audio Properties to go between 2 channel and 6 channel that's worth checking, but I'm not at a Win7 PC at the moment, so can't tell you exactly where it is. Worth checking.

Edit: Open the mixer, click the device icon (ie. Speakers), go to Advanced tab, make sure the Default Format is on 6 channel, Studio Quality.

 

[fcb]

If you're using onboard sound or a sound card, the respective audio control center can be configured to take over from the default Windows' audio control. You may want to check whether you have the right configuration for the speaker setup there as well.