Phew, got it figured out. I thought I'd post in here just in case anyone else has the same question.

Okay, so here's what I did:

I got an adapter that takes 2 RCA (red and white) as input, and outputs to a male 3.5mm. I then hooked this up to a female-to-female 3.5mm adapter and then hooked THAT into a regular 3.5mm cable/headphone extension. Then I can plug this into one of the three 5.1 3.5mm plugs - the green gives me front and the black gives centre channel. I for the most part I'll be using the front, so I can still get stereo. Between all of this and all the X2VGA stuff (to plug console into LCD monitor) I've got a crazy mess of cables behind my computer. Fun times!

Thanks for the help, everyone!

Yup, that's right, no receiver.

I'm hoping that there's some sort of adapter that will convert the two component RCA into three female jacks for a 5.1 speaker system - that way the speakers will just run off of the RCA, and they'll get power normally, through the sub.

Any thoughts?

^ Thanks for the help.

As for the speakers, I don't have to keep them plugged into the computer - I wouldn't mind swapping in and out and plugging them into some sort of adapter or something, if that would work.

The sound card is just a regular Creative Labs 5.1 Live! card - I think it's just got the regular audio plugs for 5.1, plus one for a mic and a port for joystick/controller.

If there was some way of routing the sound through the computer that would be great, but, again, I'm not set on it.

Again, just to be sure the situation is clear - the main speaker only has a headphone OUT plug (so you can plug in headphones and listen to those instead of the speakers), but there is no headphone in. All of the surround speakers terminate in the thick RCA cables and those four go into the back of the subwoofer (not that I coulnd't simply plug the component cable into the subwoofer, because then the sound wouldn't go to the speakers because they wouldn't be plugged in). The central speaker has an on/off switch, volume controls,and the aforementioned headphone OUT jack.

Any thoughts? I imagine I'm not the only one trying to do this - it seems like a fairly standard set-up, so I'm sure there's a solution out there.

Thanks!

Anyone have any thoughts?

Again, I'm not sure the RCA-to-headphone plug will work (see above) - I'd really love to solve this once and for all. Thanks!

^ Thanks a lot for the detailed response.

You know, when put that way, I'm begining to agree -I guess Dolby Pro Logic II still isn't even 5.1, so it's not really worth it anyways.

So I guess I'm off to get a regular Component/RCA-to-Headphoneplug converter,then I'll plug that into my speaker headphone... err... wait a sec, just realized something: when I plug into my headphoneport on my speaker, that's for OUTPUT (from speaker TO headphone), not INPUT (from headphone, TO speaker)...crap. So will this work still? Won't I need to find some way to get the signal to go to the main 5.1 speaker receiver (i.e. the subwoofer where everything plus into)? I doubt if I plug INPUT into the headphone port on the central speaker it will distrubte the audio to the other speakers.

Any thoughts? Thanks again!

Thanks for the fast responses, guys.

At the moment it looks like I may have to get the component-to-headphone jack converter, then plug that into the headphone jack on my central speaker. However, I'm guessing this will just give me stereo and I won't be able to take advantage of the DLproII on my 5.1 speakers - is there any way to do it so that I can take advantage of the 5.1 speakers? Anyone else have a similar setup?

Also, I've been checking hdgames.net for which Wii games are 480p (won't be able to play 480i), but some of the entries seem ambiguous - I want to be sure I'll be able to play things like TP, Mario Galaxy, and Smash in 480p - does anyone have another HD-listing site to recommend? I'm really looking forward to Okami Wii and I really hope it's in 480p - I got it for PS2, but it's 480i soI can't play it.

Thanks folks!