Assistance required 5.1 speakers & soundcard

[gaamelb]

I would appreciate some help getting speakers operational on a new computer.
I am not sure whether I cannot get the wiring right, or if some of the speakers do not work. Probably simple stuff, but I am no technician.
Realtek AC97 sound card, and 5.1 Starbird OG-550 speakers.
I can only get 1 pair speakers to work. Swapping wires around at random could result in damage. Configuration in XP seems correct.
Scrap of paper, called installation instructions are meaningless, however I have followed instructions, without success.
Is there a systematic way of checking each speaker, without any technical knowledge or equipment, and then hooking up each speaker. Is easiest solution to testing, carting speakers off to another computer to test them.
The sound board has 3 jacks, pink embeded with microphone image, green with what appears speaker image, and blue also with speaker image.
The subwoofer has inputs marked Front, Rear, and C/sub, and outputs of Front, Rear & Center. (What C/sub stand for)
Any information would be of assistance, especially an internet site, that may explain installtion, written in lay terms.
Regards,
Ian

 

[X-Humed]

It sounds to me like you have onboard sound (that is the sound chip is integrated on the motherboard instead of a seperate card - pretty much all modern motherboards have this, and it's fine).
5.1 sound utilises 5 sound channels plus a channel for the subwoofer, normally outputted in pairs (front right & left, rear right & left, centre and subwoofer - the last two are what is referred to as c/sub) and the majority of modern onboard sound solutions only have 3 connectors, but normally have a utility which allows you to switch their function.

in most cases (if memory serves correct) the green will be for the front left & right speakers, the blue for rear left & right and the pink for center & subwoofer. however you need to set these as such, normally in a utility that comes with the motherboard or system.

If you know what make and model your motherboard is, or if it's a prebuilt system, the make and model and any model numbers, it shouldnt be too hard to google the manual and also to get the sound utlitity(s) needed.

one final point is that sometimes you find that the centre and subwoofer outputs seem to be the wrong way round, these can normally be swapped. for instance for nvidia nforce based motherboards, a small utility called nvswap is used. (creative speakers are notorious for having the centre and subwoofer inputs the other way around to everyone elses!)

give the motherboard make and model,or the full make and model of pc, and me or some other obliging soul around here will probably get you going in the right direction.

 

[gaamelb]

5.1 speaker

X-Humed,
Many thanks for your reply.
Another problem I have is work. I would like to carefully go through hook up procedure at steady pace. Maybe the weekend before I get another look. I will get info suggested, and be in touch soon.
regards,
Ian