Labtec 5.1 surround sound speaker issue

[exow2]

Hey guys, recently I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate. After doing that (unfortunatly) my speakers began giving me issues as they always do. I bought these speakers with my used computer, then upgraded it, so sadly I have no information about my speakers except that they are Labtec 5.1 surround sound speakers, and are probably 1-3 years old. My current pc specs are:
Nvida Geforce 8800gt 512mb
Athlon II X4 630 2.8ghz
Asus M3A78-EM
4GB Kingston DDR2 800mhz Ram

I have tried a few things, but ran into problems. I began having problems with these speakers since day 1 of me receiving them, usually the main issue is that i'll have 2 speakers and my bass working, and the other 3 speakers are silent. Unfortunatly my mother board drivers (on the CD) are only compatable on windows xp. I managed to find the drivers nonetheless and get around that, but when i configured the speakers and did the test (where each speaker makes a noise) all of them seemed to be working fine. My issue is that whenever I try and play a song on Itunes or something only 2 of the speakers and the bass work!!! I would just upgrade my speakers but I'm on a tight budget here trying to get enough cash to upgrade my moniter and gpu. Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

EDIT: Oh and also please keep it mind, there is something wrong with my front panel hookups on my case, where if I attempt to plug them into my mobo, on startup the computer will not enable me to go into the bios or anything and says that "usb overcurrent detected, shutting down in 15 seconds". It does shut down in 15 seconds and is quite annoying since now I cant use my 2 front usb hookups or the 2 sound jacks there.

 

[exow2]

Bump

 

[ShadyDeth]

Songs do not play in 5.1 audio so only the 2 front speakers and the sub will be used while listening to a song in iTunes.

 

[exow2]

Songs do not play in 5.1 audio so only the 2 front speakers and the sub will be used while listening to a song in iTunes.

Why did I have the speakers working fine on windows xp a few months back in the exact same scenario then? Meaning Itunes was playing music out of all 5 speakers.

 

[ShadyDeth]

Most types of music files (mp3, wma, ect...) only play in stereo which is only left and right audio, not all 5 speakers, not sure why all of them were putting out sound on XP (faulty driver working to your liking advantage?) I did some searching for you and found THIS, read the "Old Solution" part of it since you dont have a SoundBlaster card, and on the website they link you to a program that might help you in what your trying to achieve. Try the free trial and see if it works for you.

 

[CJCerny]

Either the speakers have a mode that takes stereo audio and spreads it to all speakers or you had additional software loaded into Media Player that did the same, the 2.1 output is what you would expect from stereo music files in Media Player. Media Player typically only outputs as many channels as the file it is playing has in it.

 

[exow2]

I was just using Itunes as an example so everyone can have a heads up, the sound also is faulty when im gaming, watching movies, etc. Thanks ViZion im gonna get out that article>

 

[Mussels]

in windows XP (and in certain sound card software) it can automatically turn 2.0 channel audio, into 5.1 speaker sound by duplicating the sound.

In my case, i set mine like this:

2 channel in, 6 channel out - i get music on all speakers.... but i dont get surround sound in movies or games (having stereo duplicated is not surround sound.)