HDMI audio noise

[rfrenzob]

Hello,

I am working on a new HTPC and was wondering if anyone has had experience with clicking, popping, etc when hooked up via HDMI.

I currently have my machine hooked directly to my Toshiba LCD via HDMI. If I stream anything from netflix via firefox, at about the 30 minute mark I get a good bit of clicking, popping, and general noise along with the desired audio. This also seems to happen when running a DVD through XBMC. I don't seem to have the problem when streaming pandora or other radio.

I have an ASRock FM2A75M Pro4+ mobo and an AMD A6-5400 Trinity processor. HDMI is hooked up directly to the mobo. This machine has a 128GB SSD, 1TB HD, DVD-R, and 8GB RAM.

I have already tried both the 13.12 and 13.9 versions of Catalyst with no luck and am at a loss where to look next.

Thanks in advance!

 

[LoveMachine]

The only thing I can think of would be some sort of electrical charge build up with video content (audio only isn't pushing as much data through, I guess) that takes time to build. Have you tried a different HDMI cable? Since it's all digital, this wouldn't be an interference issue, but perhaps some sort of static charge coming from the HTPC. Something somewhere is poorly grounded. Any video corruption on the TV?

 

[rfrenzob]

I swapped out HDMI cables with a known good one and had the same results. I have not seen any video corruption.

When the noise came around the 30 minute mark I hit pause and play with no effect. As soon as I left full screen Firefox, hit play, pause, back to full screen, and play, the audio issue cleared up.

Have you seen this behavior before?

Thanks!

 

[LoveMachine]

The only other thing I can think of would be a bad HDMI socket on the motherboard causing some sort of short that takes time to build up. This might be a long shot, but do you have or can you borrow a discrete AMD video card (to eliminate a software/driver issue) to try out?

 

[rfrenzob]

Unfortunately I do not have a discrete graphics card to try. I guess worse case I try and run SPDIF out to the receiver.

I guess the next step would be to make contact with ASRock and see if they agree it is a bad port and then RMA the original board back to newegg.

 

[Charlie98]

Are all of your components properly grounded... using 3-prong outlets? I don't think this is a component (mobo) issue. Maybe static buildup...? Hmmm...

 

[rfrenzob]

Yes, everything is connected to 3 prong outlets.

 

[rfrenzob]

I got in touch with newegg and they offered to RMA the motherboard. I purchased an identical replacement. The board arrived today. I have it installed in my HTPC and am no longer experiencing noise in video streams.

Something on the board must have been bad.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[Charlie98]

Right on!