Another 5.1, No rear sound thread

[Iceycue]

After hundreds of combinations, and dozens of threads looking for answers, I'm just gonna try to ask before I go crazy... I can't get my pc to output to 5.1surround sound (even in settings).

I have a set of klipsch rsx-3 speakers connected to an old onkyo tx-sr504 receiver. I've tried everything I could think of short of buying a new receiver, but I can't get rear sound... The most I can get is front L/R & Center from optical, and only L/R from analog.

The first thing I tried was on board s/pdif to one of the optical in (mb is Asus z97k). Messed with every setting available to me, including enabling DTS. Everything worked except rear speakers. I read online that optical can't carry 5.1 except in occasions where a sound card was involved to encode to DDL? On board optical offered DTS (analog doesn't?) but I couldn't find DDL and I don't know the difference so I went out and bought a Sound Blaster Z soundcard (realized later that I probably don't even need it, but I'm keeping it for troubleshooting) and tried to play with its settings through audio manager and Creative's own app. I tried setting "Speakers" to default, and left "S/Pdif Out" enabled, and vice versa. Quality and volume from front L/R and center are better but no matter what I do, still no rear sound.

Then I looked into analog. I read that there's generally little problems with 5.1 when using the aux ports. The receiver doesn't appear to have 3.5mm ports, and I couldn't find any color coded green/orange/black 3.5mm cables in store so I bought 3 generic aux cables and 3.5mm to Red/white RCA adapters to plug into the designated DVD inputs on the back of the receiver for front, surround, and center/sub. I've tried both sound card and on board ports but still no sound from rear speakers, and now nothing from center either. None of the colors match except for the first red/white, but that shouldn't matter right?

The receiver has no status lights but has different listening modes for each output. When DTS is enabled on optical, the listening mode changes to DTS automatically. I've tried many of the different modes with and without DTS/DDL enabled. I'll admit I don't know what it should be set to, I don't know the difference between any but the obvious stereo vs mono...

I apologize for the redundant thread. There's thousands of these kinds of questions, i probably missed a few while doing research, but none of them offered a solution to my problem.

I'm truly at a loss.
Any help is appreciated. Am I doing something wrong, should I try different cables, are there proper cables (matching colors) available somewhere, is there a specific input or listening mode I should be using on the receiver?


(picture of back of receiver http/www.hifiengine.com/images/model/onkyo_tx-sr504e_rear_panel.jpg )

 

[ssddx]

if you are using analog input.. it would be the dvd input for 6ch analog. using 3.5mm to 2x rca cables
green 3.5mm -> front left/right
orange 3.5mm -> center/sub
black 3.5mm -> rear left/right

if you are using optical.. not all sources and receivers support 5.1 over optical. optical only supports 2.0 "uncompressed" full quality. to get 5.1 it must be compressed dolby digital sound which is why it varies. your receiver should support it (says dts support) while some onboard audio does not. your creative Z should support it (ddl and dts-connect are how its referred to on computers). you would of course need to change your settings to 5.1 as it may default to stereo.

i generally leave the receiver set to auto but you might need to set yours to dts or another sound mode to get it working.

the first thing i would verify is that your rear speakers actually work. test this first with a known source. it could be a burned out part on the receiver and rear may be out.