Just built a new computer and installed an M-Audio 5.1 SOUND card. I did not purchase new speakers and am trying to utilize my legacy Gateway/Boston Acoustic speakers for the time being. They do not work, should they? If I plug headphones into the sound card I get music no problem, but nothing with the speakers. Do I need to purchase a 5.1 speaker set? I would think that the legacy speakers would work from some port on the sound card since I get sound on the headphones. Tried everything. Suggestions please. Do 5.1 systems plug in individually to the sound card i.e. front, rear, center and SUB?Any kind of speaker should work with any sound card as long as it is plug into the right port.

Question 1: Did you install the driver for the sound card?

Question 2: Did you check volume control and sound properties to make sure it is on desktop speaker?

Question 3: Does it have an onboard sound card?

If Yes: Enter COMOS and Disable it
If No: Then CONTINUE:

Question 4: Has it ever had a sound card on it before?

Question 5: Have you tried other slots? move sound card to another slot on the computer

Question 6: In the device manager is everything ok and is the sound card listed?Thanks for the suggestions
1. Driver for sound card installed

2. All volume controls set for desktop

3. Yes has onboard sound, wnet into bios and disabled. Now the M-Audio interface window no longer displays the bars moving up and down to the music...hmm

4. New computer evertyhing including the sound card

5. Did not try other slots yet

6. Device manager ok, nothing expanded at all.

Headphones still getting sound from soundcard

?you selected use M-Audo 5.1 as the primary device. does it show you that on the bottom left conor of volume control? Did you test them out with Direct X control? Start_>Run->DxdiagThank you for all your help and suggestions.
Yes dxdiag is ok and M-Audio is showing on bottom left.

I took the speakers and tried them directly out of the sound card and everything worked ok. What I FAILED to mention is that I am using a KVM switch. The legacy speakers work fine out of the KVM switch from the old computer but not from the new computer with the 5.1 sound card,

I did not want to confuse the issue as I wanted to hear any possibilities that I may have missed on the set-up. I did not think of disabling the onboard sound in the bios and that helped so I THANK you for that one.

I aaume that the KVM switch wont work with the 5.1 sound card?? Not sure on that. The legacy is just the straight out green plug out of the puter.

The KVM is an IOGEAR gizmo with the integrated cables, working great with this one exception.

Unless anyone has any other suggestions I feel my proper recourse is to purchase a set of 5.1 speakers for use on the new machine.

Thanks for your help. I did a search on the net for help with my issue and found this site. I appreciate the help and support.

I will try to make this place a regular stopping point and help out when I can