How do I connect this speaker system?

[Martok883]

I just got a new computer. I've had this ancient (1998) Boston Acoustics Digital Media Theater with a subwoofer/control unit and a left and right speaker sitting around for years in perfect shape and I decided to hook it up. It works but I don't think I have it hooked up properly. The back of my motherboard (Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z170) has six stereo outputs labeled c/sub, side, rear, out, in, mic and looks like this:

and the back of the subwoofer looks like this:

Once I hook up the power and other speakers to the remaining ports I have are the ones labeled Surround, Analog input, and Digital input. I have been able to hook up a regular stereo cable from my motherboard's "out" stereo output to the "analog input" but it's not getting the proper 3-channel sound, I think it's just treating my speakers as a big set of headphones. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to get the proper sound to the subwoofer, left and right speakers, but my knowledge of audio cables is (as I'm sure you can tell) very limited. Can anyone give me a suggestion? Thanks!

 

[Squeetard]

Does the sub work at all? For a 2.1 system you should be able to do as you did, stereo out to analog in. The internal crossover of the sub will split out the low frequencies and send them to the sub. Does your card have a spdif output? You can try sending that to the digital input. And then setting the digital out on your card to 2.1

 

[Martok883]

I don't have S/PDIF and it just now occurred to me that may be the problem. I do get sound of the subwoofer and low frequency sound at hat but when I do the speaker test through the computer for the 2.1 setup I don't hear anything from the sub.

 

[Squeetard]

Okay then, your are set up correctly. The speaker test does not send out a low frequency so the sub will never work. But it is splitting them out from the stereo signal. Good to go.

 

[Martok883]

Ah. I didn't realize the test doesn't do low frequency. Thanks!

 

[MongGrel]

The speaker test will send out a sub signal, but a lot of older setups like that the subs tend to die over time.

It's probably just the sub and not a connection.

If the other two work, is probably the best you are going to get out of that.