X870E Crosshair Hero no audio via rear speakers via front panel audio for 5.1

[GreyWolf1]

For starters I'm not impressed with ASUS not including the 3rd audio jack on the back panel of this motherboard.   That should be there but guess I should have thought to double check ASUS on that when I bought it. 

Okay, guess I'm stuck using digital or the front panel connector.  So I plugged the rear speakers into the front panel connector and in realtek console mapped them to the rear speakers instead of Mic In as expected.  However, I get no audio even though it appears to be configured as 5.1 correctly and all the other speakers work okay but no audio from the rear.  I tried the old windows control panel sound device window and same result.  I've updated all the drivers for my motherboard to the latest.    

I found this thread and tried the suggestions even though I have a different case (NZXT H7 Flow) but didn't help.
https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/gaming-motherboards/x870e-hero-can-t-enable-rear-speakers-via-front-pa...

[GreyWolf1]

Edit:  Further experimenting and I discovered that the rear speakers are working through an audio device named "Headphones Realtek USB Audio"  but not with the Speakers Realtek USB Audio device.  Weird.  Is this a driver issue?

[Jiaszzz_ROG]

Hello @GreyWolf1 

Thank you for reaching out to us, and sorry for any inconvenience caused by the delayed response.
Regarding your description of the connection setup, according to page 35 of the ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO user manual, in a 5.1-channel configuration, the rear I/O panel ports are designated for "Front Speaker Out" and "Center/Subwoofer," while the "Rear Speaker Out" is intended to be connected via the MIC IN port on the front panel.
This means that the front panel audio jack_MIC IN is indeed recognized as the Rear Speaker Out in this setup.

However, we would like to further clarify the situation in which there is no sound output from the Rear Speaker Out unless it is switched to "Headphones Realtek USB Audio". To assist us in better understanding the issue, may we kindly ask you to provide the following information: 
- the brand and model of the speakers you are currently using, as well as whether the connection cable is the original one included with the speakers
- the current BIOS version and the images of manually adjusting items in BIOS, or whether it is the default
- the PSU, RAM model and part number, and two .txt files generated in your Windows system via the steps below:
1) Press WIN + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog, and type dxdiag → click OK.
2) Click Save All Information and select a save location → click Save.
3) Repeat the same steps with msinfo32 to generate the second file.
- a complete video recording of the issue, including confirmation of the speaker connections to each audio port, the relevant settings and adjustments made in both the Windows sound settings and Realtek Audio Manager, a demonstration of the differences observed when switching to "Headphones (Realtek USB Audio)," the actual output behavior of each channel during test sound playback, along with the source of the test audio used.

Additionally, we have noted that your chassis audio interface seems to be a combination jack. However, to support 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound on the X870E HERO, the front panel has separate audio output and microphone ports. Could you kindly confirm if you have the opportunity to test with a different chassis to further investigate this issue?

Thank you.