HELP! 5.1 to 2.1?!

[Crax]

Recently i bought myself a Speedlink Medusa NX surround sound gaming headet. Basically i had to plug in 4 wires into the back om my computer (including mic). The problem is that i laready had a logitech X-530 surround sound system. So i had to plug all those wires out.

Is there anyway i can use both? I was hoping to use my speakers as 2.1 (with one or two wires) as I still have two audio jacks left.

Please help, i really dont want to be confined to using my headsets then manually having to change the connection everytime i gotta use the speakers.

Many thanks

[dakatabg]

In your case you can just buy a double jack splitter and you will be all set. It looks like that one the pictures: I hope this will solve your problem!

http://i41.tinypic.com/73m8sh.jpg

http://i43.tinypic.com/35n64hs.jpg

[Crax]

Thanks a lot for your reply.

However; i actually tried plugging into one of the remaing jacks. So now i have sound coming out of my rear pair speakers (by changing the realtek HD audio manager to a 7.1 speaker set up.) So when i test the sound, 6 speakers have noise coming out of my headset, and the remaining 2 have it out of my speakers.

So my question is, is there any way to somehow create stereo output from my speakers? It would be great if my 2 speakers could be in stereo mode, and then when i want 5.1 i can use my headset, if this is not possible i would probably buy some jacks splitters,
Many thanks!

[dakatabg]

You will have to get the sound from your computer because if you get the sound from your speakers it won't be good because the sound will be coming from the speakers amplifier and you don't want that so the sounds has to be from the computer.

[Crax]

thanks for the quick reply, however thats doesnt answer my question. all the sound im getting is connected to my computer through the back panel jacks. Im just want to know if there is a way to get 2.1 audio though my remaining 2 speakers that emit sound. This is because those speakers are using surround sound, so most of the time (like listening to music and such) no sound is coming from them and so i have to use my headset. Any programs that could achieve this?

Thanks

[evilspoons]

Some sound cards can create an independent set of stereo outputs from an unused output jack, but it's not a really common feature. There has to be hardware support for this in the sound card. You'll find the option somewhere in the manufacturer-specific sound card control panel. I also think you have to have Windows Vista or Windows 7 for this to work.

If you have a front panel audio jack you can have the computer mute the rear jacks when you plug the front in. The normal behaviour is for someone to have 5.1 speakers plugged into the rear and then plug 2 channel headphones into the front - the back speaker outputs turn off automatically and the front headphone jack turns on. It seems like you just have to do this in reverse - leave the 5.1 headphones plugged into the back all the time and then plug your speakers into the front panel jack for 2-channel when you don't want headphones.

A third possibility is to get a second sound card and plug the headphones into one and the speakers into the other. All you have to do to switch is tell Windows which card you want to use as primary. A side benefit would be being able to play a movie through the speakers and listen to music on the headphones, if you want.