just bought an onkyo ht-s7200...few questions

first off, it's lovely so no real problems so far. i do have a few questions as this is my first foray into the surround sound world.

1. the 3rd speaker on the left side of the room has a short cable than i would like as i can't quite get it to the position i want. i think i need a like 5 to 6 more feet of cable. is there a place anyone would recommend that i could buy such a cable? this is the long cable connection from the 3rd speaker on the left hooking up to the receiver.

2. something i like to do often is hook my laptop or desktop up to the tv to play videos/games. the one issue i have found is i dont know where to hook up the computer sound connection to the receiver so that i get sound. i thought the portable jack made sense, but i didnt receive any sound so im not sure. any ideas?

thanks in advance!

First of all, congrats on your outstanding purchase. Once you get it set up, you are going to love it !!! However, in answer to your question, what you should do is what everyone on this forum who has purchased an Onkyo HTiB has done - ditch all of the speaker wire that came with the 7200 ( it's WAAAYYYY too small in gauge ). Then go to Lowe's or Home Depot and purchase some larger gauge wire. You need at least 18 gauge, but 16 or 14 gauge would be even better. Make sure that you measure accurately the total length that you need, and buy in bulk. They have giant rolls and will cut you any length you desire. It's cheaper that way. Then when you get home, just cut it into the lengths that you need for each speaker. BUT, if you can wait a couple of days, go to www.monoprice.com for bulk speaker wire and all of your interconnect cables. They offer high quality at LOW prices and fast shipping. And, in case you don't know - STAY AWAY from Monster cables. MUCH too expensive. Monoprice has equal quality for much less.
So far as your audio, on the Onkyo you have only HDMI, digital optical or coaxial, and analog stereo inputs. Not knowing the audio ouput of your sound card, I cannot suggest anything for that end. :)

i am assuming something like this may be safe?

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5/R-100560760/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

i will get back to you on the sound card.

thanks for the help!

First of all, congrats on your outstanding purchase. Once you get it set up, you are going to love it !!! However, in answer to your question, what you should do is what everyone on this forum who has purchased an Onkyo HTiB has done - ditch all of the speaker wire that came with the 7200 ( it's WAAAYYYY too small in gauge ). Then go to Lowe's or Home Depot and purchase some larger gauge wire. You need at least 18 gauge, but 16 or 14 gauge would be even better. Make sure that you measure accurately the total length that you need, and buy in bulk. They have giant rolls and will cut you any length you desire. It's cheaper that way. Then when you get home, just cut it into the lengths that you need for each speaker. BUT, if you can wait a couple of days, go to www.monoprice.com for bulk speaker wire and all of your interconnect cables. They offer high quality at LOW prices and fast shipping. And, in case you don't know - STAY AWAY from Monster cables. MUCH too expensive. Monoprice has equal quality for much less.
So far as your audio, on the Onkyo you have only HDMI, digital optical or coaxial, and analog stereo inputs. Not knowing the audio ouput of your sound card, I cannot suggest anything for that end. :)

The wire you posted will work fine. If you have spdif out on your laptop, run this directly to your receiver and you will get DD. However, this will not give DD True HD sound. for this, you will need HDMI out on your laptop.

btw for my desktop i have a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card. what sort of connection would i use to hook that into the surround sound?

thanks again for all the advice!

Here is what Wikipedia has about your card:

The creative website contains misleading and at times inaccurate information about this card. This has led to confusion among potential and existing users of this card. In 2006, the XtremeMusic line was discontinued and the XtremeGamer was available at a similar price point, however, there are fundamental differences between these cards. XtremeMusic supports the Digital I/O Module which allows SPDIF input and output using Coaxial/Optical. XtremeGamer does not have this connector, and therefore does not support Digital I/O. However, it does have an optical out, which can accept a mini Toslink adapter and can be connected to any SPDIF-Optical compatible receiver. It also does not have a header pin which is used to internally connect the SPDIF to cards such as Nvidia's GTX cards to enable sending both audio and video through the HDMI port on the video card. However, this does not enable uncompressed HD Audio formats such as TrueHD or DTS Master over either the SPDIF or the HDMI.

So, according to this, you need an optical cable and a mini Toslink adapter. You would run this from your soundcard to an optical input on your receiver. But, you will NOT get lossless audio. At most, only DD or DTS 5.1 sound.

so i have played around with the setting son the receiver a bit, and am a bit confused. does anyone know what the best setting for movies/tv is? also, what is the default setting for the receiver under the movies/tv categories. I currently have it set to Pro Logic 2X Movie, but I am not sure if that is the default and best option. FYI I have a hdtv package and blu-ray player and xbox360 so any ideas would be helpful. Me and my brothers also thought the Pro Logic 2X Game sounded good for the xbox360.

Thanks!