Realtek 5.1/7.1 surround speaker issue in Windows 11.

If this is onboard sound visit the PC makers support for updated Bios and drivers, if a self build the mobo makers site

Hi Palcouk,

This is in effect a self build, as I purchased a motherboard/processor bundle from a very reputable company here in the UK, as an upgrade to my pc for Windows 11. I had it running Windows 10 for about ten day's prior to installing Windows 11 without any problems at all and I had already updated to the most recent drivers. Do you have any further thoughts on this issue, or should I just hope that Microsoft get enough people report the same problem and they implement a fix?

Do you show a Realtek Audio Console in your apps? If so, it should set the speaker configuration.

If you don't have it you may need some additional drivers or software.. If we knew what motherboard you have it might help,.

Hi,

No I do not have Realtek Audio Console, showing in my apps, but on one occasion when I tried to install Audio Manager(if that is the same app) during the second phase of the install it failed to install the driver. Sadly I did not note the error message, but I think it related to a more recent driver being already installed. My motherboard by the way is an MSI mag X 570 Tomahawk wi-fi. I have looked on MSI's website and there seems to be a BIOS update, albeit a beta version, but does state about Windows 11 support. Dare I risk updating my BIOS? but I still can't figure why it worked perfectly in Windows 10 but failing in 11.

That motherboard appears to have an audio driver, 6.0.1.9250 10/19/21. I do not see a Win 11 OS option yet so it should work.

Personally, I would not expect a Beta Bios version would be needed to get an audio device to work, but no way to know for sure.

Are there anything other utilities that may get installed? On my system it loads the Realtek audio and some Sonic utilities but mine is an ASUS motherboard. I have not checked the Microsoft Store for something like a Realtek console.

So you know, I have no experience with AMD systems.

Any luck?

I have the RealTek Audio Console and it doesn't give the option for anything but stereo over Optical. I've gone to my motherboard's maufacturer's (ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming) website and it's list the same driver as what was auto installed by Windows Update. I've attempted to obtain a drive from Realtek but their site seems to only have older drivers for older OS (and it's painfully slow)

The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming only has a Windows 10 audio driver listed and its possible that its not fully featured but with the basics working in Windows 11. I'm leaning on that being the issue.

Realtek goes based on chipset. I have no idea what chipset that it, but its highly probably that Realtek doesn't have an official driver on their website for Windows 11 for that chipset out anyway at this time, if they ever do.

I would just recommend outputting multi-channel audio differently such as through the GPU HDMI, multi-channel outs analog on the back of the board, add-on card, or whatever.

You can wait and see if it ever changes. But, I don't think you're going to find a way to get optical working again with multi-channel without waiting for a small possibility or moving back to Windows 10.

I don't have optical so can't triple check that or whatever. Sound is complicated on computers so maybe you'll find something anyway if you try hard enough :-)

This was broken on Win10 too

Any luck?

I have the RealTek Audio Console and it doesn't give the option for anything but stereo over Optical. I've gone to my motherboard's maufacturer's (ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming) website and it's list the same driver as what was auto installed by Windows Update. I've attempted to obtain a drive from Realtek but their site seems to only have older drivers for older OS (and it's painfully slow)

Take your average Realtek audio chipset and you will find that Dolby and DTS are optional items. Optional means ASUS the motherboard manufacturer has to pay for it.

https://www.realtek.com/en/products/computer-peripheral-ics/item/alc898

Your motherboard has DTS Sound Unbound --- whatever that is. Even DTS is vague about it in their FAQ's and doesn't say anything about home theater uses (which is your optical cable).

https://dts.com/dts-sound-unbound-faq/

No Dolby means that you can only use PCM on optical cable --- restricted to 2 channels.

You had Dolby license 15 years ago because you bought a DVD-burner that came with OEM versions of WinDVD, You had Dolby license 10 years old because Microsoft included DVD software in Windows 7. You had Dolby or DTS 10 years ago because you bought a PCI sound card that came with Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect that does live re-encoding to those formats.

Long story short --- you don't have 5.1 channel on optical because you didn't pay for it.

Hit Windows Key + R, and enter mmsys.cpl, and hit Enter. Then click on speaker configuration and set it to 5.1 7.1 or whatever your system can run. All the other answers are wrong, and the people posting them are clueless. Windows 11 has an issue that needs to be fixed. This will solve your issue in the meantime. You will have to continue to do this until its fixed. Make sure to run the Test, so you can see that all of your speakers and sub are working.