I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but does this sound card support 5.1 speakers? I have 2.1 at the moment, and it sounds great.
Thanks for any help.

Realtek AC'97 audio is usually (if not always) on-board sound, which means that it's a sound chip integrated into your motherboard, rather than being a separate removeable sound card. They are very common but come in lots of different implementations.

The simplest way to find out is to refer to your motherboard manual or the documentation that came with your PC. If it refers to front and rear speakers, then it at least support 4.0 sound. If it refers to "6 channel" sound, then that usually means 5.1 surround sound.

Alternatively, if you have a sound card utility or application installed for that sound chip (e.g. SoundMAX), then there's often a configuration screen to switch between different modes.

Hope that helps

Thanks for your help. The pc is a TIME Model MS-612 xp 2600+.
I didn't get a motherboard manual and the main manual is general information on TIME computers.
I have run SiSoftware Sandra on the motherboard and see no mention of Realtek or audio in the information. Sound card information tells me it is Realtek AC97 Audio version 5.10 (ID 100/1). Channels 65535, Maximum standard sampling 16bit and 96kHz.

Can you go to the Start menu, select Run, type DXDIAG in the box and then click OK? This will start up the DirectX Diagnostics Tool. Click the 'Sound' tab and let us know what the Device ID is. It's a very long number but that's the only way that I can think of to uniquely identify the type of Realtek sound chip that you've got (other than opening up the PC).

PCI\VEN_1106DEV_3059SUBSYS_71201462REV_5 (and a symbol like a lower case L after the end 5).
cheers.