Vista - ALC889A, Vista x64, Speaker Fill = rear speakers distorted

I have a similar problem, but not sure what to do.

I recently bought a new computer - GB ep45-ds3p mobo with vista 64 ultimate.

My problem is all my speakers are muffled and dont really play any sounds well,especially the woofer.
Ive got vista 64 ultimate, with the realtek HD audio manager, audio driver version 6.0.1.5672 (latest from realtek) codec - ALC 889A.

I have standard logitech 5.1 speakers, but I can only get sound from the back 2 speakers if I use 7.1 speaker configuration. But even then it's still muffled.

I dont have an option on my realtek HD Audio manager that says 'speaker fill' so Im not sure if that would fix it or not. I do have 'optional speakers' or 'full range speakers' but no 'speaker fill' option. No combination of options ticked or unticked that I can see seem to get the 5.1 speakers to work normally.

Do I need to try older realtek drivers? Or do I need to wait for Realtek to release a driver update that works for me?

Would installing a separate sound card work?

Thanks for any help.

I added Creative Audigy LE to my system. It has resolved my problem. I am using my roommates computer which is dual monitor dual soundcard system. He is using the onboard Realtek ALC888T and sennheisser HD280 Pro while I am using audigy LE with Creative T6060. I have also found problem with Creative EAX Console. Sometimes the WMP11 outputs through all speakers and sometimes it doesn't (using cmss3d). I have klite mega codec pack installed and 64bit klite codec pack. I have also found that some features like volume boost in mpc and mixer functions in ffdshow audio don't work sometimes. Sometimes restart fixed the problem. Everything is fine in XP PRo 32bit and Fedora 9. Waiting for xonar to be launched in India. I am not having internet connection in the hostel room I am living in. So has this issue been fixed?

The only way I can get sound out of my rear speakers is to select an Environment under Sound Effects in the Realtek HD Audio control panel. The sound was working fine yesterday (fresh install) without an environment selected. The only down side to this is it adds a bunch of reverb and muddles the sound. I am running on a GA-EP54T-DS3R, using the drivers downloaded from the realtek site. www.realtek.com

In my opinion I shouldn't have to select an environment to get the sound out of the rear speakers. very frustrating.

Hope this sheds some light for someone.

Just bumping this for an update.

The problem still exists. I recently added an additional 4GB of RAM and a 1TB drive so I did a fresh repartition and decided to stick Vista x64 back on to make use of the RAM and cause I just like it a little better than XP now that the bugs are mostly worked out.

I got the newest drivers for everything, including the version 2.11 or something like that off Realtek's site. So yeah the problem is still there. I finally decided to put my X-Fi Xtreme Gamer back in as I really value my speaker fill surround for music, and my Logitech's Matrix mode for some reason doesn't work properly with some of the frequencies in a lot of songs I have. Also I can't stand anything but proper 5.1 surround in LOTRO and the software mode just doesn't cut it.

Actually had a bit of a scare as the system wasn't seeing the X-Fi and the drivers wouldn't install.. Even tried changing slots.. Dunno if they need to be air blasted or what but reseating it by pulling it halfway out and then pushing it back in finally fixed the issue.

3D Soundback doesn't work properly with LOTRO either, as it hangs at a black screen when exiting or sometimes loading, and Alchemy outright makes it crash on startup, lol.. Good thing it uses OpenAL I guess.. Hopefully any outstanding game bugs won't rear their ugly heads.

@Zach
Dude try the new drivers for xtreme gamer. They have finally added dts and dolby digital decoding at hardware level feature in vista. Till now it worked only on XP. Tell me if everything is fine. Are you facing any stuttering cracle pop noise problem everyone else seems to be facing with it?
I am right now using x fi titanium 4gb ram and 1 tb raid0. I heard vista64 and 4gb or more RAM gives serious issues to the user. No problems yet.

So far everything is going well with my X-Fi.. been through a few on/off cycles and it hasn't pulled a ninja disappearing act on me yet. Using the latest official drivers, LOTRO works great, have my hardware surround and EAX effects. Although I admit the hardware sound with this card is a lot different in terms of some of the volumes (even with the same settings) and way some effects play, versus hardware sound in XP on my Realtek chipset. Either way I'm getting used to it. No crashing or horrible problems like people have historically complained about with LOTRO & X-Fi's so maybe creative put out stable drivers for once.

Was this ever fixed? , i can't listen to my rears like this

@Neilsouth
Get a cheap creative soundcard with cmss3d or check if any xonar is compatible with your motherboard and get it and put channels to 2 in the console. Beats Realtek onboard totally.

I have a cheap creative "xtreme audio" but well the performance sucked with it in vista gaming yet the audio quality was Impressive!. The realtek HD gaming performance was great nice and smooth but rear speaker distortion was crap in music (speaker fill). I'm now using windows 7 but the "xtreme audio" doesn't work with cmss so im using realtek hd , but still the distortion sucks. I'm going to save up for an xtreme music or something

Btw i got my music working without distortion ( sound quality isn't brilliant though )

I'm not sure about the Xtreme Music, but I'm pretty sure the Xtreme audio is a fake software Xfi with no hardware acceleration whatsoever. I seem to remember a lot of confusion about that when they first came out..

I'd just go with an Xtreme Gamer to be safe. Well, until Creative decides it's time to force us to upgrade and starts crippling our hardware through drivers... AGAIN