I recently formatted my system, just to get a little better organized and reinstall all my stuff.

After installing everything like normal, my roommate pointed out that my rear satellite speakers from my Z-680's weren't working at all.

We messed with every option we could find. My roommate is pretty damn good with audio stuff, as he does a lot of home recording, has been in tons of bands, does all his own recording and whatnot. He knows quite a bit. We can't figure it out at all though.

The one weird thing is that in the Nforce options (Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, onboard sound), the levels for each speaker show each speaker working fine EXCEPT the rear satellites. BUT! If you click the Test Tone button, which says "Left... Center... Right... Left Surround... Right Surround..." through each corresponding speaker WORKS. At that point, you do in fact clearly hear the rear satellites working just perfectly. They make no sound whatsoever, though, for any other applications.

I heard mention of AC3 encoding causing problems. Anyone have any recommendations??

Thank you.