Connecting Sound Bar to HTPC

[coops1]

Hi all,

I recently built an HTPC for my family with spares I had and parts from a broken desktop. It works well for streaming iPlayer and such, and watching DVDs, which is basically all it is used for.

At the moment, the sound is coming through the TV. Since the graphics card in the PC (GeForce 8400GS) doesn't do audio through it's HDMI out, and the TV won't play audio through one channel and Video through another, the audio is currently coming through a 3.5mm jack to phono converter plugged into the component channel, while video is through a component to HDMI converter with the audio plugs not plugged in.

My parents have decided they want to get better sound out the HTPC, since it's in a small room, a sound bar seems preferable to surround sound speakers. My question is, how would I get the sound bar to play sound from the PC? The PC has 5.1 Audio inbuilt, and lots of 3.5mm jack outputs on the back (I'm guessing these are like front, rear, sub, center etc.) can I plug the sound bar into these and get 2.1 sound?

Sorry if this seems like a very simple question, I'm not bad with computers but completely clueless when it comes to audio!

Cheers for any help.

 

[noidea_77]

Most of the onboard sound cards provide an optical out port (SPDIF) as well and that's what most sound bars except as input. The 3.5mm jacks are used for 2.0 - 5.1 computer speakers without a build-in decoder.

 

[coops1]

Cheers!

 

[coops1]

Okay, so I googled S/Pdif out and thought my motherboard had one, after further inspection it appears not to. As far as I can tell it only has Analog Audio out on the rear I/O panel. Can I still connect a soundbar without the spdif?
P.S. the motherboard is from an Advent T9610 and I think it is a Foxconn G33M05 model.

 

[noidea_77]

Okay, so I googled S/Pdif out and thought my motherboard had one, after further inspection it appears not to. As far as I can tell it only has Analog Audio out on the rear I/O panel. Can I still connect a soundbar without the spdif?
P.S. the motherboard is from an Advent T9610 and I think it is a Foxconn G33M05 model.

You are right. This mobo doesn't have any digital sound out. So you either need a soundbar or speakers with anolog in like these: http/www.logitech.com/en-us/promotions/10212