5.1 speakers on laptop (toshiba satellite x200) reading as stereo

I have subject laptop but the speakers properties have only stereo speakers
listed for config in control panel. laptop has 4 x harmon kardon speakers
with bass, listed as 5.1 speakers under specs. Just loaded latest drivers
(realtek) from toshiba canada website but still no list of 5.1 speakers for
config. Any suggestions on how to get the speakers listed as 5.1 or did I
misunderstand the specs ? Any help would be appreciated. System has Windows
Vista Ultimate, 1.8 ghz core 2 duo, 2gb of ram, video card is nvidia 8700m
gt, 512 mb vram. Thanks

What configurations do you have as being available?
Are you using Vista's control panel to configure your sound device?
The specs on that laptop says there are 5 stereo speakers and one sub
woofer, so the 5.1 should be available.

My 5 year old desktop computer, using a SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
device and running Vista Ultimate, has listed in the "Audio channels:"
section,
Mono, Stereo, Quadraphonic and 5.1 Surround.
I only have one stereo jack plugged into one of the three available jacks,
so currently I am set to Stereo.
One of the other jacks has a microphone plugged into it. Although I have'nt
tested 4 or 6 speakers in Vista, it worked fine in Windows XP.

I am using desktop to configure. Under audio channels, all I have is stereo
listed. I am not using any of the speaker jacks. Any info would be
appreciated.

Try uninstalling the driver then reinstalling it.

[McConnor]

Hello alltogether,

The thread is old but still: I have the exact same laptop and problem. In Vista "Sound" properties only "Stereo" ist shown so that the integrated Subwoofer remains silent! I have the feeling the Sub only works in the drivers that shipped with the system. But this driver has other shortcomings (crackeling sound) so using this one is not a really good option. I understand that the Sounddriver from Realtek (using the 2.27 at the moment) can be customized by e.g. Toshiba. Supposedly the speaker setup can somehow hacked in some kind of registry key or ini for the driver. Any suggestions on this - how can we get the speakers to work.

Greetings....