Help with Digital Speakers in Win7

[White-Tiger]

Hey guys,
I recently acquired a new Acer Aspire 7740G laptop. It's not the best laptop in the world but I think it was a pretty good bang for the buck.

On the left panel, it has an HDMI out port, a 3.5mm line in, a 3.5mm mic and a 3.5mm headphone/spdif port. Now, I have digital speakers which I actually kind of like, they are old Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 Digital speakers. They worked fine on my old computer under Windows XP (when I clicked the "Digital out only" check box in the Audio options).

However, I simply cannot get these damn speakers to work under Windows 7. In my audio options, it says I have three playback devices:
--HDMI out
--Speakers (internal jack and 3.5mm left panel jack)
--Realtek HD Audio (SPDIF optical jack (or so it says, because the jack is a 3.5mm))

The internal speakers work fine (albeit not loud enough for me), if I plug analog headphones to the 3.5mm headphone/spdif and use the speakers option, also works fine. The problem is when I try to plug my digital speakers (using the same RCA cable with a RCA->3.5mm adaptor I was using under XP)...I get 0 sound. Even if I put the RealTek HD Audio to default.

I've tried reinstalling the Realtek Drivers several times. I just don't know what to do. If I can't get them to work under digital I'll have to resort to going to buy a long 3.5mm to 3.5mm and use the analog in for my speakers, but that would reduce sound quality :(

[RagingRandy]

I believe what you need is a toslink (fibre optic)cable with 3.5mm ends. Like this.... http://www.anythingav.co.uk/images/Product%20Images/IXOS1010%20mini%20toslink%20%281000%20x%20844%29%2 0copy%20%28440%20x%20327%29.jpgYou can not carry a digital signal over a standard cable. The 3.5 mm port can output both analog and digital signals. BTW your speakers are not digital the sub\amp just accepts a digital signal.

Apparently in XP the output could out out both digital and analog simultaneously. As of Vista this is not the case. You need to select your output type.

Pulled from another site...

To switch between these right click on the red realtek speaker by the clock (If you have it disabled reenable it for this use)

After right clicking, select audio devices, the screen that comes up will say "playback devices" now you should have at least two items listed, analog or digital output.

(if you don't see both, right click on the analog speaker and click "show disabled and show disconnected devices)

The analog should have a green check mark by it. Right click on the Realtek digital output and click "set as default".

The green check mark now should have followed to the digital output, you will now get sound to your receiver, however not your analog. To test that both work as set, you can right click on one and click "test" the analog will play, right click on digital and click test, it will play.

Leave which ever you need at the moment set as default.

[White-Tiger]

Thanks for that reply!

If I did get that toslink cable you mentionned, I am not sure how I would use it. I'd be able to plug it into my laptop, yes, but my sub only accepts analog 3.5mm input or digital SPDIF thru an RCA cable???

[RagingRandy]

Look into something like this.....http://www.ramelectronics.net/audio-video/audio-converters-extenders/coax-s-pdif-to-from-optical-toslink/optical-to-coax-converter-pof-830/prodPOF830.html