Rear Speaker Output

[AKA_RA]

Realized that there wasn't a sound related thread, so I decided to put this here. Anyone have any idea as to why my rear output on my on-board sound would suddenly sound really quiet? it was working about an hour ago, and i spent the last hour looking for settings i may have over looked. i even uninstalled all sound drivers and NVmixer and reinstalled them with absolutely no luck. its not the speakers, whatever i plug into the rear output channel is too quiet, and theres seemingly no way to turn it up to an acceptable level. BTW, this is on my epox 8RDA+ which has an nforce 2 chipset. The onboard sound is basically soundstorm without the spdif bracket. i havent touched any of the sound jumpers on the board. any help would be much appriciated.

[Omega]

nVmixer has a panel with a bunch of volume sliders.

That's all i can think of right now =p

[crenn]

Check connections and things like that.... that's all I can really think of that could be hardware based....

As for software based problems... there could be a lot of things. Volume sliders in programs could be one, driver problems could be another and things like that....

[AKA_RA]

theyre all maxed out, so i dont think thats the problem.
ive maxed out every volume contol on every program i can think of, i honestly have no idea what to do now.
thank you though.

EDIT: im using a pair of headphones, that i know for a fact are in working condition, to test the rear channel, no matter what driver i uninstall/reinstall no matter how many times i unplug/replug the problems remains. if i plug the headphones into the front channel, i get no problems what so ever, so theres definately something wrong with the rear channel only

[crenn]

Hang on.... REAR CHANNEL??? I thought you were talking about the rear output ports.... so you're only talking about the rear channel, correct?

[CanaBalistic]

Could another program be using that port but not putting out a signal?
Have you checked windows sound settings?
Are you trying to play music from a cd? Check the sound cable from the drive to the mobo.

Rear speakers in general dont put out the same noise levels as front speakers. Do you have an equalizer running in your music app? Are there any surround sound options you havent set?

[AKA_RA]

im trying to play mp3's using windows media player and winamp. not at the same time, im just trying to use differant programs, neither produce satisfying results. i did check the windows sound settings. ive checked every sound setting i can think of, i honestly don't think theres any i've missed. but the problem is that the rear speakers arent just a little bit quieter than ther front, theyre hardly audible at all. like i said, it was working before, and now its not, and i didnt change any settings, so im wondering if something it physically wrong with the port itself. i checked it out and everything, ive checked it many times, and everything seems to be in order. no short circuits, no moved jumpers, no dust, no debris. i just dont get it. is my onboard sound dieing?

EDIT: After uninstalling everything all over again and reinstalling sound drivers, ive managed to slightly increase the volume of the rear speakers, i dont know why its only working a little bit better than before. but its noticably improved.

[crenn]

Hmm.... well, are you running a program that turns the music you're listen to into 5.1, or are the MP3s already in a 5.1 format? Because I had to use a program myself to get that type of stuff working when I had my 5.1 on board sound.... but I couldn't get it working unless I got a program to do it.

[AKA_RA]

i set nVmixer to clone the front channel to the rear during audio playback otherwise i dont get any sound at all. the only other option would to put a delay on it so it would sound like an echo, which still sounds too quiet even when i put the delay to 0ms.

[crenn]

Hmmm...... How loud is the front channel?

[AKA_RA]

well, when i plug my headphones into it, its pretty loud, so i turn the main volume down to compensate. when i plug the headphones into the rear channel it sounds like ive already turned the main volume down half way(which is louder than it was earlier, but not as loud as it was before i had problems with it), and thats with the every volume slider/knob/adjuster/etc. turned all the way up. somehting has obviously changed because the front and rear channels used to sound the same.

[crenn]

Hmmm.... I've never had or seen this problem myself. I can't help you, sorry. But I'm sure someone else will be able to.

[AKA_RA]

yeah, i really hope to get this resolved eventually. its kinda pissing me off that it just stopped working suddenly and i cant seem to fix it.

[CanaBalistic]

That seems really weird... The closest promlem to this, that i've had is when my center channel died out. It turned out to be a kareoke option i had turned on accidentilly.

Click on start>> run>> dxdiag

This is a direct X diagnostic program that could help find the problem. Run all the sound tests and see what comes up

[AKA_RA]

thanks, i totally forgot about that program. then again, ive only had to use it one time other than this. i tested everything and the onlything that looked out of place was the directx file directx.cpl. it says its not the final retail version of that one file, but instead is a final debug version so it may run slower. i dont know what that ahs to do with anyhting, but im looking around to see if other people have had problems related to this file, which is apparently the control panel.