No sound from subwoofer but 'test' sounds work

Question

I have a pair of Creative T40's plugged into the green port (front speakers out) on my motherboard's (P5Q-SE) intergrated soundcard. I also have the subwoofer only from a set of Logitech Z-2300 plugged into the orange port (subwoofer/front speaker out).

I can 'test' the speakers in both windows sound options under control panel and realtek HD audio manager and all the speakers produce sound as intended.

However, when playing from other sources, e.g. WMP/winamp/chrome the sound will only play from the two T40 satellites, the subwoofer will stay silent.

Any ideas why this is? I'd like to get the sub playing with the T40's for a bit of added bass. Any solutions or bright ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Sam

Answer 1

The orange port is for 5.1 or 7.1 audio streams; 2.0 (i.e. stereo) streams will require the sound system to extract the bass audio and send it to the subwoofer itself.

Answer 2

In the end i used one of these..

http://www.earlybirdsavings.com/ebaypics/120626/3-5mm-Female-to-2x-Phono-RCA-Male-Audio-Extension-Cable-1-8-Stereo-Jack-Dual-RCA-975-2.jpg

to plug the two satellites (T40s) into the back of the z-2300 subwoofer. Does what I want, i.e. T40 sound with added bass. Can you see any harm in doing this? Am I losing anything?