This certainly is mystifying. You said you know the speakers are OK as you tested them. Are you sure the speaker connector is in the correct jack? The one closest to the Joystick/MIDI connector is for Rear Out. (The option for four speakers has to be engaged (in the software) for this to work.) The next jack is the normal Line Out, where you would connect a set of powered stereo speakers. The next jack is Mic IN, and then Line IN, and then the yellow jack is Digital Out.

Also ensure that nothing is muted in your audio controls.

Speakers are working fine. Plugged the connector into the normal (violet) motherboard jack -sound works fine, tried some of the sounds on Control Panel/Sounds & Multimedia.

When I plug it into the normal Line Out on the Sound Blaster Card as you've said - nothing ! Crazy thing is, when I look at the volume control to check that nothing is muted, it says in the bottom that it's a Creative Soundblaster PC. Nothing is muted by the way !!

"Plugged the connector into the normal (violet) motherboard jack -sound works fine, tried some of the sounds on Control Panel/Sounds & Multimedia."

This means the onboard sound is engaged in the bios. This should be disabled.

Dan, you've cracked it !!!!

Went into BIOS, onboard sound was enabled. Disabled it, plugged the connector into the sound card jack, ran a music cd and we now have "proper" sound.

Many thanks.

You're welcome.

Remember to keep the proper sound card drivers for your installed O/S somewhere safe. ;>)

Happy listening........