Dell Inspiron 1520 - 5.1 sound from intergrated sound chip

Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 with 8600GT. I wanted to buy a 5.1 speaker set but it would be of no use as 1520 does not have 3 audio jacks while the 1525 and XPS 1530 has 5.1 output.
I was just wondering, if it was possible to somehow get an extra audio jack outside the laptop by checking if a header pin for a third audio jack exists on the motherboard since the audio chip is HD audio and motherboard design would be similar to 1525 and XPS 1530

I lot of people have openend up their systems and taken a look at the audio circuitry to fix the static noise coming from the headphone jacks. Did anyone notice if a third audio jack could be soldered to the motherboard to get 5.1 audio.

I also read somewhere about surround sound audio from the S-Video connector. Is it possible?

Thanks

 

It can support a 5.1 sound system, but only those which have only 1 cable, which is splitted by the sound system.

 

Thanks for the reply.

You mean a sound system with an S/PDIF input.
Does the 5.1 output work with all sounds especially games or just the DVD playback ?

I cant find the adaptor on the dell site.
Have you tried this on your system as I am not sure whether the audio out is working or grounded.

 

Just a bump .. is anyone aware of my above query ?

 

Depending on the 5.1 sound system you buy, there are workarounds.

The Logitech X-540 5.1 speaker set has a "matrix mode" button setting which turns 2 channel output into virtual surround sound.

Check Windows' Playback Devices and take a look at the "Speaker Fill" enhancement, I believe it does the same thing (virtual surround sound).

 

Thanks for the reply, but Im not talking about virtual surround.
I wanted to know whether the Inspiron 1520s S-Video port can output movie and gaming surround sound to an actual 5.1 setup via SPDIF.

Thanks