I just bought a stellar new four-channel sound system for my PC, with four satellite speakers and a huge sub-woofer. But when I plug it into my one-year-old Pentium II PC with its OEM SoundBlaster sound card, I can't get two of the satellite speakers to work.

Patrick Applegate

There are a couple of possible solutions. In the first place, to obtain four-channel sound on a PC, you need a sound card that supports four channels. All of Creative Labs' SoundBlaster Live! audio cards support four channels. The easiest way to check is to examine the sound card's ports on the back of your PC. If you can see two line-out jacks -- one for each pair of channels -- then the card supports four channels.

If, on the other hand, your card has only a single line-out jack, you can use an adapter available from Dick Smith Electronics to split the two-channel signal and send it to all four speakers. To get true four-channel sound, though, you'll need to buy a new sound card.

If your SoundBlaster card does support four channels, and you're sure that you have attached both pairs of satellite speakers to the correct jacks on the card, your software may not be properly configured. To find out, first open Control Panel's Multimedia applet (Sounds and Multimedia in Windows 2000). Then, under the Audio tab, confirm that the Playback box is set for your sound card. Next, click the Advanced button and make certain that the Speaker Setup reflects your current audio configuration (see FIGURE 2). Finally, select Control Panel-System-Device Manager-Sound Cards-Properties, and confirm that your audio card has been set up to handle four-channel sound.