5.1 surround sound system for my PC?

[i8DRM]

So far as I can tell, my rig has no 5.1 stereo output. Specs: Dell Optiplex 7010 Mini-Tower, Quad Core i7 3770 (3.4GHz), 16GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1TB Hard Drive: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

https://I.dell.com/sites/doccontent...ments/OptiPlex_7010_Technical_Guidebook_1.pdf

Is a surround sound system a dead-end for this PC, or are there workarounds?

 

[neeyik]

Page 23 of that document has your answer - the sound chip only has two channels. So there’s no way to get 5.1 surround sound using the PC’s normal output sockets.

The easy solution is to buy a USB external sound card that offer 5+ audio channels, such as this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Creative-External-Multi-Channel-Discrete-Optical-out/dp/B0953LL5R6/

 

[VoidTheWarranty]

Even an older creative card like an X-Fi would do just fine. I've been using the same sound card since like 2007 or something. I'm pretty sure that mobo had pci slots. Motherboard onboard audio hasn't changed much in the last what 5-10.