You can connect the 5.1 speaker system to the dell laptop as long as the cable is not an optical or digital cable. Some cables double analog or digital. These you can use. You should be able to plug them in if the connector fits. You may not have sound out of all of your speakers but you can still try. If the plug will fit then nothing can be hurt. If it does not work you might try getting an external usb sound card(e.g. soundblaster mp3) I hope that answers your question.
Speaker
It uses ordinary speaker cables. Unlike modern surround speaker systems, the Acoustimass 7 does not have a powered subwoofer. The only way to connect it to a surround receiver is to use the speaker level outputs from the right, center and left channels. They connect to the sub, and then on to each of the front 3 speakers. You will need to tell your receiver that there is no connected subwoofer, and that the size of the front 3 speakers is 'large'.
== Each speaker is driven by a pair of wires coming from the amplifier. One wire is "live" and the other wire is "ground". There are two little contacts in the headphone socket which connect the amplifier's live outputs to the headphones when the headphone jack is inserted. When the headphone jack is removed the contacts reconnect the outputs to the speakers. So it's important to connect the "live" side of each of the speaker lines to these switches - not the "ground" wires which should stay connected to the speakers! Because headphones usually have a much higher impedance than speakers the headphones will draw a lot less power from the amplifier but that won't do it any harm so there is no need to add any extra resistors in the leads. == Connect it to one side of the speaker line. You'd better have a resistor in the lead going to the earphone.
Front Right speaker: RedFront Left speaker: WhiteCentre Channel: GreenLeft Surround (side): BlueRight Surround (side): GrayLeft Back Surround: BrownRight Back Surround: TanSub woofer Line-Level Output (RCA): PurpleNegative: black
You can use Normal PC headphones and speaker too and Iphone/Ipod headphones will work too
If it only has one subwoofer output, purchase a RCA splitter to allow you to connect 2 subwoofers.
If speaker systems have Amplifier (home made).... Then you just combine their inputs so that ground couples with ground and signal input wires attached to the input wires or with connector.
you could connect them all to each other then connect them to the receiver. or if you wanted a surround sound experience you could connect the biggest directly to the left and right channels respectively and then connect two of the pairs one set at a time as follows... left surround front (positive to receiverL+, negative connects to the positive of the left surround rear, negative of the left surround rear goes into the receiverL- ) on the right side ( right surround front + goes to receiver, (-) goes to the (+) of the right surround rear, the (-) of the right surround rear goes into the receiver.) this changes the sound frequencies the speakers are best at supporting because it changes the ohms of the speakers. this is called wiring in a series. as opposed to wiring the speakers all together + to + ,- to - , which is called wiring in parallel. Then with the last set of speakers set them at the very rear of the soundstage and wire the left speaker's positive into the left positive connection on the receiver then the negative of that speaker into the positive of the right channel. Then wire the positive of the right speaker into the positive of the right channel on the receiver and the negative of the right speaker into the positive of the left channel. this will only play the surround channels of the signal. test these speakers out alone if you want to hear the surround sound effect by itself. In music it will be the background singers ect. (if you have ever wondered how a surround system gets extra channels out of two analog wired channels now you know :)
If the speakers are not powered (they don't plug into the wall), you can cut off the RCA plug, strip back the wires to a negative and positive lead, and connect them to the speaker posts of the receiver.
Ebay, flea markets, and garage sales are great places to purchase discount surround sound speaker stands. Amazon also sells some discounted surround sound speaker stands.
Researching the Macbook Pro has shown that the speakers port is available. One can use the headphones port located on the left front of the Macbook to connect speakers.
The typical cost of a surround sound computer speaker system is about $50. There are some which cost more but the main difference is according to the Wattage and the number of surround channels.