Latitude D630 Sound Card

Hi everyone. I currently own a Latitude D630 and I have a question regarding the SigmaTel HD Audio CODEC sound card that is built into it. The previous laptop I owned was an HP Compaq 6230 which had an ADI AC ‘97 CODEC built in that supported Integrated 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible audio. With that laptop I was able to plug my stereo reciever into the headphone jack and it gave me wonderful 2.1 channel sound. If I remember correctly I was able to go into the cards settings and set it up to playback that way. Currently however with the D630, I don't have this feature. If I'm correct on this the SigmaTel HD Audio CODEC sound card is only capable of playing back in "stereo" according to the software installed with the card which means through 2 speakers. It has no option of changing to 2.1 so it will send signals to a subwoofer which means when I plug the receiver into my headphone port, it only plays back 2 channel music through all 3 speakers (left, right, and sub) making the sound quality quite poor.

What I would like to know is if I have to go through the trouble of purchasing an external sound card in order to achieve what I would like or are their alternative ways around my dilemma? The drivers are all updated to their latest releases so that is not the issue. Even if I were to purchase a 2.1 channel set of computer speakers to plug into this it wouldn't sound correct so I would think there must be a way to fix this.

Thank you very much for your help!
It's greatly appreciated.

 

Can't you have the receiver convert to 2.1? That's what it would do if you, for example, connected a CD player to the receiver... right?