conexant 20561 spdif

I have a conexant 20561 smart audio hd on my laptop and for some reason it is not working. ive checked the other threads and i couldn't find any that related to my exact sound card. now i have a 3.5mm toslink to toslink cable and when i plug it into the headphone jack it won't work: control panel - hardware and sound - sound - right click on "SPDIF" - then "test." the toslink-spdif cable won't even show a red light at the other end when i do this. i have vista professional (32) and the computer is from school. is this there anyway i can fix this issue?

**ive also tried ac3 filter, that didn't work.
**ive ffdshow audio decoder as well, that didn't work either.

help.

***Clarification:
i've tried the cable with an audigy 2 ZS sound blaster card (PCMCIA) and the cord works. i forgot to mention that i've reinstalled the driver, which made my internal laptop speakers not work, so i had to roll the old driver back. the conexant driver is listed as an SPDIF "interface" (when i go into the control panel - hardware and sounds etc.) and the audigy card is listed as an SPDIF "out", what's the difference? the audigy card works well, but it would be nice to just use my internal sound card for an spdif pass through.