Thanks again grunt. The Realtek interface has changed since the manual, so it was not very helpful. I did go back through the tabs and behold, there
an spdif out and it is selected.
I picked out a few cheap audio cables and connected the 6 channel audio out to the 6 channel direct in the receiver.
The receiver is taken out of the equation because it is striat passthrough. The Realtek software switches don't seem to work as expected.
So, the mobo outputs are assignable so I plugged them in one at a time to make sure they were assigned properly. This part of the interface is nice in that a window pops up each time a connetor is inserted. My choices for fronts strangely are 'front speaker'; no left and right channel. Same with the surrounds. The center or sub is center/sub. is it one, is it both?? I am one rca to headphone connector short so I plugged in the sub.
First up, some two channel music. I get good two channel from the mains. Next I engage the fill switch (stereo to surround conversion) and... nothing. I stop the music and restart to make sure its engaged (had to do this to switch connectors) and still nothing.
Next up I put in LOTR. AHA! I get sound from the surrounds. Thats a step forward. Nothing from the center OR sub though. There is another toggle labeled switch sub/center. I flip the switch and get... only lfe through the mains??? Actually I get music too. Very weird.
Several things occurr to me at this point:
1. What the heck were the designers thinking?? A 5.1 system has both a sub and a center and you assign them separate outputs. Its not an either or situation.
2. What the He!! were all those reviewers doing that they came to the conclusion that the audio section of this board was good. I didn't pay much attention to the details at the time, but you would think, given that this was positioned as an htpc board, that they would have checked out this functionality. Apparently not. 15 minutes would have told the story.
So, next up, some final diddling in Vista and, if needed, a trip to BB to test the spdif out.
