No sound from center left speaker ?!?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skybuck Flying
  • Start date Start date
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Skybuck Flying

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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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...
Click to expand...

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
Click to expand...

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 ?!?
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
Game mode seems to work ok.

However entertainment mode, with royal hall settings, no sound was coming
from left speaker, so still a bit weird.

Maybe even mode has it's own THX settings hmm... I'll try that.

Can't setup THX in entertainment mode, so entertainment mode is still
missing one speaker.

I don't care about audio creation mode... I tried switching to it, but it
crashed the console...

Wow weird... maybe the x-fi software was fokked by the motherboard software
or something oh well...

At least game mode seems to work correctly which is most important to me !
;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Oh when I restarted the console the audio creation mode came back... good
thing it didn't crash otherwise I couldn't switch back to game mode.

Well I am not going to test what happens in audio creation mode.

Switching back to game mode ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Wow I just tried audio creation mode for the first time !

It actually allows to "play"/"experiment" with the music while it's playing
!

AWESOME ! =D

So it's possible to apply all kinds of audio effects to the music while it
plays !!!

AWESOME never knew about this ?! ;) =D

Now I am gonna try and play with it !

AWESOME ! =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D
 
Surprised no one is jumping in on this... News server has been down for me
a week or more. I see you have been busy. So what brand of Receiver is
this that requires rocket science?

Don't blame the acronym THX, that's just the name of a standard and three
letters that manufacturer's can be allowed to use when their component(s) is
submitted to Lucus for certification and approved. There really is no such
thing as "THX" mode. That's just the name for a setting the receiver's
manufacturer calls it. It sounds important/impressive, and hell they paid
big bucks for the THX certification they might as well exploit it. What the
setting should be called is "the accurate Dolby decoding". I read some more
of your posts and sounds like you resolved the weirdness. But that's the
component manufacturer's loaded software/characteristic of the specific
device you have; it's not really a THX related thing. So you can or have to
assign the channels... that's deep. Before skimming the rest, I was going
to suggest checking/reinstalling firmware.

I just acquired a surround processor and upgraded it's firmware, set speaker
distances (delays), and volumes, etc. Much more elaborate than my last
component (RIP). I feel your pain after experiencing having to tell the
unit what port what source is connected too and the audio and video are
independent. I can plug the DVD player's video into port 1 and its audio
into port 5 and that's ok as long as I specify it that way. I needed paper
& pencil to keep track of it all to match how and what's plugged into the
back to the set-up menu. I can't imagine that my mother, for example, could
deal with this. Yesterday, I switched some things around and admit I lost
track of it for a while... picture no sound, shet! There was a time I could
wire a stereo up in near darkness, now I actually NEEDed the manual.
 
Yeah thanks for your interesting.

The ammount of possibilities is probably amazing/staggering.

It's so much I would probably need a statisticus specializing in math and
stats how to calculate it...

I will forward this message to math as well, maybe somebody wants to give it
a try.

First for the math people I will try to sum up the problem:

(Input) Data:

1. There are 8 holes on the receiver.

2. There are 3 cables.

3. Each cable has 1 plug (A1) on on end, and 3 (rca) plugs on the other end
(B1,B2,B3).

4. The soundblaster has 4 holes, of which only 3 are needed for the first
plug (A1).

5. The THX setup has 8 speakers each can be assigned to each other.

(I will leave speakers connected to receiver out of it ! ;))

The question for the math people is:

How many possibilities does this create ?

I'll try to guess it:

Each RCA can be combined as follows:

1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 = 40320 possible ways just to connect the rca's to the
receiver.

1x2x3x4 for the other ends = 24 possible ways. (these could be multipled
with above but ok).

THX assigments, assuming all 8 can go to 1.

8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8 = 16777216

These could also be multiplied together with each other.

So the number of ways it can be connected is staggering !

Ofcourse most people are not complete idiots which will try everything.

No, they will apply some smartness, some heuristics to it.

Cables and holes and speakers which seem to be connected properly, or
removed from the equation leaving a few possibilities.

My speaker situation is not completely solved as I wrote in my last posting.

I had to manually swap assignments between side left speaker and subwoofer,
this works for game mode, but not the two other modes.

This is really weird. Perhaps some day I might find out way... but so be it
;)

I agree with you... my mother or my brother probably could not have figured
this out... how to connect them and how the assignments work... it was
really weird... I barely figured it out myself ! Thankfully there was a
small delay between both signals or a volume increase which confirmed my
suspiciouns of two channels being assigned to a single speaker otherwise I
might have doubted my own hypothesis and kept trying for ever ! ;)

The software is not really clear how it works or what it is doing... I am
not even sure if there is a manual for it... it seems simple enough not to
require a manual... but it's highly deceiving... it also doesn't seem to
work properly... it simply outputs all sound through the front speakers...
total weirdness, even a manual would not help against that weirdness ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
"david" wrote in message
Surprised no one is jumping in on this...
Click to expand...

"
That's because most people have the idiot Skyfuck killfiled.
"

Most people are idiots anyway, so most can go **** themselfes.

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
You plonking yourself now you fokking idiot ?!

Stay in your fokking idiot group were you belong.

And never come back here.

You are not welcome here.

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
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