No sound from center left speaker ?!?

Hello,

Something strange has happened.

The center left speaker is not producing any sound. I tried swapping it with
the center right speaker which did work.

I am pretty sure everything was correctly connected.

So it's very strange.

I was watching transformers 3 movie...

Windows 7 seemed to like 2.1 channels I set it to 7.1 channels... creative
x-fi elite pro 7.1 soundblaster/console

I checked all settings in windows... all volumes seem normal... everything
normal... yet center left speaker refuses to put out sound ?!?

I also tried swapping power cables to see if it was maybe a power issue but
didnt help so swapped it back.

I also tried rebooting windows... didn't help...

Hmm...

Very strange...

I cannot explain it... I tried wiggling the cables to see if that helped but
nope...

To me it seems either a strange windows problem, maybe some update is bad...

Or perhaps a fracture in a cable ?

Perhaps connection problem, perhaps 7.1 receiver reconfigured itself ?!?

Very strange...

Bye,
Skybuck.

I did notice creative labs licensing services to be stopped.

The strange situation is that the motherboard drivers came with "x-fi" trail
software while my real x-fi soundblaster has all the software already.

So maybe these two are conflicting ?!?

Maybe the trail expired and is now somehow causing problems ???

Well enough of this...

For now I will have to be statisfied with 6.1 instead of 7.1 which is good
enough to watch transformers... but gjez... what a weird problem.

Bye,
Skybuck.

"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Something strange has happened.
>
> The center left speaker is not producing any sound. I tried swapping it
> with the center right speaker which did work.

I figured you are talking about the rear left speaker in a 7.1 surround. You
swapped the left rear speaker with right speaker and it works... I think you
mean both rear speakers physically work so it has to do with steering. It's
acting like a 6.1 channel surround.

> I am pretty sure everything was correctly connected.
>
> So it's very strange.
>
> I was watching transformers 3 movie...

All of a sudden?

> Windows 7 seemed to like 2.1 channels I set it to 7.1 channels... creative
> x-fi elite pro 7.1 soundblaster/console

You are running movies through you computer to a receiver. Speakers
connected to the receiver. The output of your PC (Sound Claster card) puts
out 7.1 channel steering, and at the end it sounds like you connect to a 7.1
channel receiver. You using an HDMI cable or digital optical cable to
transmit all channels from PC sound card to receiver? Jiggle cable no help,
but did you try a different cable? It's happened to me... the last thing I
suspect if the cable but find that it was the cause for entire channel not
playing.

> I checked all settings in windows... all volumes seem normal... everything
> normal... yet center left speaker refuses to put out sound ?!?
>
> I also tried swapping power cables to see if it was maybe a power issue
> but didnt help so swapped it back.
>
> I also tried rebooting windows... didn't help...
>
> Hmm...
>
> Very strange...
>
> I cannot explain it... I tried wiggling the cables to see if that helped
> but nope...
>
> To me it seems either a strange windows problem, maybe some update is
> bad...
>
> Or perhaps a fracture in a cable ?
>
> Perhaps connection problem, perhaps 7.1 receiver reconfigured itself ?!?

In the sound card or receiver's set-up, there is a setting to set 5.1, 6.1,
7.1 so that if 7.1 is not available, the left and right rear are summed to
create a 6.1 (Dolby Digital EX) - this may be what's happening. On the
receiver, does it have a channel tone generator to help with channel
balancing? If so, run it. This will take the PC out of the equation. If
both "rearest" channels play, it's not the receiver. Check the PC sound
card control panel to ensure 7.1 is active and not 6.1. If on the PC you
see that 7.1 is selectable and selected, I'd suspect a wire. You swapped
speakers, now try swapping the wires.

> Very strange...
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.

Thanks for trying to help.

Today I did a "tone test" via the 7.1. receiver menu, I was able to do it
via it's little display which was nice... before that I tried to connect it
to old tv but that unsuccessfull.

Anyway the tone test was successfull, this produces noise on each speaker
one at a time.

All speakers are working correctly and all cables from receiver to speakers
are working correctly as I expected/suspected. Thus my decision not to
change anything was a good one. I would have been very surprised if a cable
was broken since I barely touch em.

So the cables from receiver to speakers and the speakers themselfes are
definetly not the problem.

I also tried disabling the subwoofer in the receiver but this didn't help.

There are now two possibilities remaining:

1. The cables from PC to Receiver are somehow inproperly connected or where
reassigned by the creative labs sound card.

2. It's a weird windows/driver/creative labs driver issue.

At the time I was connecting the PC cables the PC died/motherboard died, so
I am reluctant to start fiddling with that again.

At that time I was trying to connect them properly... they seem to be
connected properly but I can indeed remember pulling out and replugging some
cables on the receiver side... because I probably connected them wrongly and
couldn't make sense of it...

So for now my best guess would be:

Cables from PC to Receiver still wrongly connected !

The coming days, maybe I will change them... for now it's not a big issue...
perhaps later when I play a shooter like BF3 it might be an issue

Reconnecting cables requires full power down... so that's going to take a
while... I am not going to do that all in one day... too dangerous me thinks


These cable issue's kinda suck... I wish there were better cables
available... but I guess this is Creative's way of trying to screw people.

Bye,
Skybuck.

There is definetly something very strange going on.

I was just poking around with the RCA cables and trying to map them with
stickies.

The weird thing is the following:

It seems two seperate channels are both being directed to the "front
center".

When I plug in both cables I can hear a slight delay on the speaker that
says: "front center".

It's like a stereo on one speaker...

Then when I on plug one, the volume becomes lower, a clear indication that
two channels are being re-directed to the center.

Side left and Read Side Left are now not working.

So the problem has become worse.

So it seems something is trying to re-map ?!?

What could possibility cause this ???

Bye,
Skybuck.

Hmmm it seems to be the THX speaker selection. (in the x-fi console menu)

Apperently it's possible via software to screw it up.

I guess I accidently screwed it up when trying out the software.

I never imagined it was possible to re-configure via software lol...

Now all my labels screwed up lol...

But now that I understand it should be possible to try and figure it out.

Though one cable is unplugged because there are 9 and only 8 holes...

So I hope everything is reconfigureable then this should be a breeze !

Bye,
Skybuck.

It's not working...

What is this THX technology a piece of CRAP !

Goddamn it !

I hope I can just re-configure it to default speaker settings or something.

All sound seems to come from front speakers when trying to re-configure
it... what a piece of crap software !

Bye,
Skybuck.

Ok,

Gjezus was this difficult to figure out.

Here is what I did to make all my speakers work again. (Remember I don't
have a subwoofer attached so that was part of the problem).

What I did was the following:

1. Click on "assignment" in THX console.

When the sound starts playing simply click each speaker for each sound,
simply move to next speaker for next sound
in a circle like fashion.

Then when it's time to select side left, instead click subwoofer.

Then when it's time to select sub woofer, instead click side left.

This will swap the assignments around !

(I noticed I heard a small subwoofer noise sound coming from one of the
speakers so that's a good sign that cables are connected, so this convinced
me that all speakers were actually connected, just the assignment was
wrong).

So now all speakers are working again !

Until thing I need to do now is try to correct the assignment for the rest
of the cables.

The THX also shows the plug holes from the soundblaster which is kinda
handy...

So just keeping swaping sounds/speakers around until the assignments are
correct.

Simply use X-fi blue console to test speakers !

I should now be able to figure it out !

Thank god... pjew... what a difficult software to use... this could have
been a lot simpler but ok !

So in the future if your sound is working correctly don't touch the THX
console assignment test ! =D

Bye,
Skybuck.

Ok using the software to do the swapping is kinda retarded.

Now I remember how I did it in the past it's real simple:

1. Simply go to THX console.

2. Do the assignment test.

3. Simply click the speakers in circle order (so simply pretend all speakers
are connected properly).

4. Then start attaching the cable one by one and test until the correct
cable for the correct speaker is found.

5. Now do yourself a favor:

Label each fokking cable.

So the next time you don't have to struggle so much.

If anything happens the next time then simply:

1. Re run thx test.

2. Pretend on speakers are connected properly.

3. And then simply stick the labeled speakers into their correct label
holes.

Ta-ta !

Problem solved for ever ! =D

LOL.

Now I go re-label my cables, since the thx setup originally was screwed up
which was the cause of the problems !

But now it's ok.

So I can re-label my cables properly.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Hmmm...

There seems to be an odd bug in the THX software, or my cables are just
weird.

But I cannot connect my cables the way the circle behaviour is in the THX
console.

I have to swap left channel and subwoofer channel.

The rest works ok.

So this is a bit weird.

I am gonna stick with it now though

So maybe it's a cable problem, in that case THX re-assignment saved the day
!

Now I can go enjoy my 7.1 speaker set.

I will have to leave labels of side left and subwoofer cables off since
that's a bit whacky

That should be a clear indication to me in the future that something weird
was up with those cables

Bye,
Skybuck.