Hi,

I recently purchased a new barebone to replace my old entertainment system. While the specs of the motherboard claims to have HD audio, it only has 1 analog output jack (lime green) in the back (it has 3 but the other 2, pink and blue are for headset and mic), and my 5.1 speaker set requires 3 jacks (black, lime green, and mustard yellow). I am just wondering how can I plug in my 5.1 with just one jack. I haven't been tracking the mobo trend for a while so am kind of outdated on this front. From googling, I have read that people are going towards home threatre systems instead of PC speakers, but that would be a costly upgrade for me. More googling indicates there are also audio front panels that can connect to the HD pins on the mobo, but I haven't gotten any luck finding such panels. (my barebone's case comes with a front panel, but it has an HDD activity LED and 2 analog jack, one lime green, the other pink). I am just wondering if you guys know where I can find some HD audio front panels to select from. Also, are there any HD audio REAR panels that connect to expansion slots in the back like a PCI card, because connecting a bunch of speaker cables to the front panel would look weird). Thanks. (another option is to buy a new audio card, but my PCIe slot is already taken by the video card).

Look at the directions/specs and the drivers/settings. There's usually a setting in Advanced Speaker Settings (under Sound and Audio Devices) that allows for 5.1 using all 3 as outputs - you no longer have Input whatsoever. I have the same thing with mine and it's not even HD.

Front L/R + Rear L/R + Center/Woofer

Edited October 16, 201213 yr by submix8c

I never quite liked the idea of the single-jack surround setup that Realtek uses on motherboards. I wonder if it is emulated or maybe the quality isn't as good?

Ok... not knowing your Mobo (you didn't specify), here is an example of what I was indicating.

thank you, submix8c. My mobo is ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX and I have to check out your suggestion this evening when I get home.

cool. thanks submix8c. With Realtek HD Audio Manager, I got it to work! It is quite confusing though -- if I enabled enable multiple streams for the back panel and the front panel, it doesn't work.