surround sound for laptop

[biffd11]

hey everyone,
I just bought a new laptop. It's a toshiba satellite A200 (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?coid=-33536&seg=HHO)
I currently have surround sound for my desktop but I am switching to the laptop completely. The speakers i have are logitech 5.1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168361211260) The input on the speakers is a three cable system (orange, black, and green) but the output on the laptop and the docking station is one 3.5mm stereo port or a S/Pdif port. Does anyone know if there is a way to get my nice speaker system to connect to my new laptop? Thanks for the advice.

Biff

 

[The_Other_One]

Probably the best would be to get a new sound card. If you can find a PC-card/PCMCIA/Cardbus 5.1 sound card, that'd be my top choice. However, glancing at what Newegg has, they don't have anything very reasonable for your needs(unless you want to pay around $300-400...)

USB is another alternative, but I tend to stray away from it if possible...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102174

 

[biffd11]

question

I looked at sound cards, like the audiology sound blaster (http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=10769) but that only has two inputs too. How would that connect to the three input speakers? Also, do they make external sound drives that I could connect to my docking station?

Biff

 

[The_Other_One]

Audiology? Hehehe...

That's actually what I was looking for(or an older SB Live version) And it has a wire that connects to it with additional plugs on it...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1684443,00.asp

 

[whitewater_rob]

external sound card

I've got the creative external USB Sound Blaster, and it works great for running 5.1 on my laptop and has a lot of cool features. The audio effects for listhening to music (concert hall, garage, etc.) are really sweet if you like switching up your music sound a bit. Creatives internal sound card (portable) didn't seem worth it for me since my speakers are not exactly portable. The sound quality is also a lot better for headphones ( plugging them into soundcard vs. laptod headphone jack). Mine was like 80$ CND.

 

[CPTMuller]

Yeah get one of the PCMIA cards or in a fewmonths the expresscard sound cards.