so i started having issues with my mic in particular one day and fixed it by reinstalling my sound drivers (including the realtek HD audio manager) and some new ones specific for my headset. now my good speakers that use the optical port dont work at all despite everything being set up identically as far as i can tell. other speakers in the standard ports work, my USB head set works. just not the optical and i am confused. the audio manager registers that stuff is pugged in and even confirms its sending data when the speaker is selected. only thing i mucked with was the drivers too. and no google-foo has no availed me this time.