Got the speakers, Have a problem

I bought the Z-5300e's from the hot deals forum from Newegg. They came today and upon packing it found a problem. It has 3 inputs for the computer which are green, black and orange. Here's the problem, my computer only has a green input. It onboard sound, not a sound card. I never put in a sound card because my mobo is Micro ATX and after I installed the 8800GTS there was only 1 PCI slot left. It's still empty because if I put something there the Vid Card will not have room to cool. Should I put a Snd card in anyway......What to do :?

I ran into a similar problem with my Altec Lansings. On the subwoofer, there was actually a switch to change them to a 2 channel input. Once I did that, I just plugged in the green plug and all was well. Your speakers may have a similar function.

Alternately, some mobo's have the option of using the blue and red plugs as outputs also if switched by software. Check the manual for your motherboard.

What motherboard do you have? I thought most motherboards had built-in 5.1

It's an ECS k8m890m-m

you can get usb sticks that will give you 5.1 gimme a min and il dig up a link

Ok my mistake they will only give you ''virtual 5.1'' on a 2 channel output. maybe you could look into an external soundcard?

My guess is that the colors simply dont match up. you likely have a 6-channel onboard sound card. if this is true, there should be an option somewhere that lets do things like plug your rear channel speakers into the aux input channel(usually blue on my mbs) and the sub/center channel into the mic input(usually pink).

Worst case scenario, you get a 3 way splitter from radio shack and plug them all into the main output

M-Audio makes external usb soundcards also... I had a Sonica Theatre once.. 7.1

Was decently priced too.. about $100 USD when I got it 3 years ago. The only problem I had was that I couldnt run my webcam and sound at the same time, due to limitations of the usb on my old laptop. (Not usb 2.0)

Looking at the ECS website, you at least have 6-channel audio (5.1).

From the tiny picture of the board, you have a pink, blue, and green port. Try plugging in just the green, go into the audio setup program, and set it to 5.1. There will probably be a diagnostic utility, so run that. For my Audigy 2, it cycled through the speakers, sending a beep out of each one. If you don't hear any from some of the speakers, plug the other wires in to the blue and pink ports. I think most of this will just have to be plugging in things and trying it out.

mal is absolutely right. your board can run this

Specifications:

• Model: ECS K8M890M-M AMD Socket AM2 Motherboard (RETAIL)
• Item No: C3595
• General Features:
  • Socket AM2
  • VIA K8M890 & VT8237R+ Chipset
  • Realtek ALC655 6-Channel Audio

however reading this you might want to consider an external soundcard - someone mentioned firewire ones recently I think ??? because RealTeks codec doesn't handle positional sound too well. experiment along the lines mal suggested and see how it sounds. you will need the realtek drivers and "SoundRack" I think it is called - their sound manager program installed - it lets you set up the output sockets.

Plug in the green.

Turn on the speakers.

Make sure the "matrix" is turned on OR the switch on the subwoofer is set to "2" (it's channels). It won't be true surround, but it'll still be really good and you'll get noise from all channels.

=]

crazy b is correct, its caled sound rack

If you want an external sound card, could look at this:

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_prelude.php

I searched for SoundRack and only found one link for Windows 2000. I'll try just the green wire for now and set it up in the control panel to see where it gets me. More tonight, when I get home.

With my MSI mobo, the onboard sound automatically detected when I plugged in the yellow and black cords into the blue and red ports, and converted them to audio output.

Wont hurt to try that. :)

soundrack will almost certainly have been on the mobo driver disk and may already be installed. hope it's all thumping now :) ... oh and what luke is describing i think SR does that. may need a manual tweak.

I set the control panel to 5.1, but I still have it on 2 channels with the green to green plugged in. I then connected black wire to pink port, and orange wire to blue port.

And...

IT SOUNDS AWESOME!

I can feel the subwoofer in my chest! And it's on it's lowest setting!:banana:

Thanks everyone! Lot's of Reps coming!!

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Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

I set the control panel to 5.1, but I still have it on 2 channels with the green to green plugged in. I then connected black wire to pink port, and orange wire to blue port.

And...

IT SOUNDS AWESOME!

I can feel the subwoofer in my chest! And it's on it's lowest setting!:banana:

Thanks everyone! Lot's of Reps coming!!

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Now turn it up, and put on some bass-heavy music (I like daft punk).

Your neighbors will be pissed. And stuff might fall over.

TGS :up: sorted, happy, noisy.

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Originally Posted by Omega

Now turn it up, and put on some bass-heavy music (I like daft punk).

Your neighbors will be pissed. And stuff might fall over.

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hahaha i said earlier in this thread my neighbours hate mine lol x50 he he

I found all logitech subs, all you need is the lowest setting!

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Originally Posted by crenn

I found all logitech subs, all you need is the lowest setting!

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Yeah, but it's fun to crank that mofo and obliterate your organs.

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Originally Posted by Omega

Yeah, but it's fun to crank that mofo and obliterate your organs.

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I'd agree but my family complains about it on it's lowest settings with the equalizers set to reduce bass... damn them T_T

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Originally Posted by crenn

I'd agree but my family complains about it on it's lowest settings with the equalizers set to reduce bass... damn them T_T

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Same, so I just wait for days when I'm the only one home, then let 'er rip

especially on BF2, I actually had a friend who was coming over run into my house and begin to tell me that he heard a big explosion, then he saw my screen. =D

I live alone. I recommend divorce for best sound quality. Can be a costly peripheral device though. ;)

I can't wait to play C&C and drop a Nuke on the enemy at at least half volume :D

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Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

I can't wait to play C&C and drop a Nuke on the enemy at at least half volume :D

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*ion cannon ready*
*click*
*select target*
moments later...

*BOOM!*

now I want to do that... oh, and have the graphics cranked up <3

TGS

when you say set to 6 ch in control panel was the icon a funny looking upside down blue eagle sort of thing vaguely reminiscent of the iconography of HITLERS Germany? ... if so that's SoundRack.

:)

I use my speakers as an alarm clock, too. At full volume. Nothing like 560w of "WAKE THE **** UP" in the morning.

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Originally Posted by Omega

I use my speakers as an alarm clock, too. At full volume. Nothing like 560w of "WAKE THE **** UP" in the morning.

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thats what i do for my neighbours. they once called the Police because I was making loud noise at 9.15 pm. before the Police arrived I had stopped - the only reason I was making noise I got a little lost' in the work I was doing.

As they had not even knocked on my door to ask me to turn it down I now wake them at 8am each day with 400W of Faithless "Insomnia".

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

thats what i do for my neighbours. they once called the Police because I was making loud noise at 9.15 pm. before the Police arrived I had stopped - the only reason I was making noise I got a little lost' in the work I was doing.

As they had not even knocked on my door to ask me to turn it down I now wake them at 8am each day with 400W of Faithless "Insomnia".

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Heh.

See, your neighbors bitched about 9am? I'm doing this at 6am... out of nowhere, some random metal song (well, normally metal. Yesterday it was techno. mp3 player's on random.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

TGS

when you say set to 6 ch in control panel was the icon a funny looking upside down blue eagle sort of thing vaguely reminiscent of the iconography of HITLERS Germany? ... if so that's SoundRack.

:)

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I set it to 5.1, I never saw any Hitler icon stuff.

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Originally Posted by Omega

Now turn it up, and put on some bass-heavy music (I like daft punk).

Your neighbors will be pissed. And stuff might fall over.

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Mmm... daft punk!

I once lived in a big apartment complex, and on a random sunday morning, around 9am, someone/somewhere was blasting this crappy eurotrash techno. *bump,bump,bump,bump* was all we could hear. It wasnt that loud, but was loud enough to wake us (roommates and I ). We were hung over and unhappy.

I walked out to the living room, loaded my Bass Mekanik (yes, spelled right) cd into my Pioneer/Nuance system, with 4- 10" powered subs, and proceeded to rattle the plates in my kitchen. (And probably half the buildings kitchens also) After about 1 minute of this, I stopped.

Total silence after that.

:D

A few years back, living in eastern Oregon, I had a neighbor decide he wanted to "bass it up". I let it go for a while, but he kept turning it up and up.

Finally, my roomie and I turned on all 9 speakers (something we had never done before) and put in a soundtrack called "feel the bass".

Suffice it to say that between the 2x 15" studio monitors and the 12" center channel sub, he was over within minutes saying we were knocking stuff off his walls... and we hadnt even turned the speakers to face the walls yet.


Let me tell you, playing (at the time, top of the line) Mechwarrior: Mercenaries on a 500w 9 speaker surround sound system is awesome. You FEEL every step the mech took.

i used to have a sexy setup,

Two 8" subs, each @ 400w RMS, four 6" Tweaters @ 300w and Six 5" Mids @300w, and all were power to there max, asin if i wanted 400w through the subs, i could give each 400watts, likewise for all the other speakers, needless to say, all this was run through a ****tly stack stero system. if i rem correctly, the first time i turned them on, i had single pane glass in my living room, turned them to max, played pink floyed, first drumb beat came, cracked the window rite accross.

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Originally Posted by XcOM

if i rem correctly, the first time i turned them on, i had single pane glass in my living room, turned them to max, played pink floyed, first drumb beat came, cracked the window rite accross.

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Nice.

Oh, and in your sig, if you watched TSAH2 like I think you did, it's "It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum... and I'm all out of gum!" or something like that, lol. /OCD

I had a particulary nasty run in with a neighbor several years ago. The guy would fire up his table saw at 3 am just to see who he could piss off. After about 2 weeks of this, I ran wires out to his house and arranged my big PA speakers to be right under his bed pointing up (the house he was squatting in is on my property line and I can get under the house from my side). He usually slept when most of the 'hood was at work (when he wasn't video taping our houses through the windows), so on this day I was at home and waited until I knew he was sound asleep, I put on some Tupac and fired up my Rane amp and bounced his house with 300 watts per channel. I never heard him fire up _any_ tools after 10pm after that. I honestly think he **** himself that day. My neighbors were in awe at how loud those speakers were and it's become a joke (many years later), not to mess with the Tracy's or you'll go deaf. Hehe. Still makes me smile.

What the hell? Was that guy a total jerkass or what?

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Originally Posted by xRyokenx

What the hell? Was that guy a total jerkass or what?

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Yes. Yes he was.

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Originally Posted by Airbozo

Yes. Yes he was.

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..until he disappeared. ;)

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Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

I set it to 5.1, I never saw any Hitler icon stuff.

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^^^^ thats what I meant just so you dont think im mad

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

^^^^ thats what I meant just so you dont think im mad

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Not mad, Crazy. :D

Looks more like a crab than a swastika to me..