Can 4.1 speakers work with a sound card that only has one line out port?

Question

My friend just purchased a Dell Inspiron 620 desktop that has integrated 5.1 channel audio. On the back of the computer where all the plugs/ports are, there is only port for a line out for audio. The speakers he has, have two plugs...1 is for the front speakers and 1 is for the rear speakers. The speaker system also has a subwoofer, but this cord does not plug into the back of the computer. I can only get sound out of the front speakers, but if I plug the cord for the back speakers into the line out port, the sound comes out of the back speakers. This computer has windows 7 and I have set up the sound configuration for 4.1 speakers. When I do the sound test, sound comes out of the rear speakers even when they are plugged into the line in port. The speakers are several years old so I don't know if there is a driver I can download to make them compatible with Windows 7 (I checked the Creative website and they don't have new drivers for the speakers), or if I just need a sound card that has two line out plugs. Any advice would be much appreciated!!!

Answer 1

Did the computer come with any preinstalled vendor-specific audio control panel? You will most likely need to configure the outputs using that rather than the Windows controls, or possibly see if Dell has one available for download on their website for this specific PC model. Double-check the taskbar and all installed programs on the computer for anything audio-related that does not belong to Windows itself.

Otherwise, what you will need to do is go to the control panel, devices and audio and more specificly, device management (or use dxdiag if you are familiar with it). You should be able to see some vendor and type of the card under the multimedia(Audio, video something)-subsection. The chip vendor most likely has some form of control software you can then find on their website, to be used as a last resort in attempt to get stuff to work. This however can lead to you losing all the sound, and forcing you to revert back to the previous drivers.