Win7 losing HDMI audio output when waking up display

[VirtualLarry]

I have a HTPC with a Foxconn 780G mobo, DDR2, AMD BE-2400 (2.3Ghz dual-core). HDMI out.

It is connected with an HDMI 1.3B cable to a Westinghouse 32" LCD TV w/DVD player built-in. It's a decent little TV. 1366x768 res.

Recently, it seems to have trouble. When waking it up (set to turn off monitor after some time), it wakes, but the default system audio device in Win7 is set to SPDIF, and not the HDMI audio output.

Yesterday, I thought I had fixed it, by updating my ATI drivers from 10.10 to 11.8. But it seems like it still has the problem.

I sort of fixed it by going to Control Panel / Devices and Printers / Right-clicking on the computer, and selecting "Sounds". While sitting at that menu, it eventually "woke up" the HDMI audio, and it became enabled and default.

But for some reason, when it doesn't work, it is showing up as "Disconnected", even though the HDMI cable clearly IS connected to the HDTV.

I have disabled the SPDIF output, and now it defaults to my MagicJack dongle's audio as the system default audio device (when it doesn't work).

So what's going on here? Is it my TV, or my HTPC? I have the HTPC connected to my HDMI 1 port, and my FIOS HD set-top box connected to HDMI 2 port. My FIOS TV works just fine.

If I have to, I'll replace the HTPC, but ... I would like to get to the reason behind this before I do that.

This only started just recently, and I have no idea what's causing it. There was a power outage about a week ago, but my HTPC and TV are on a UPS.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

It's likely the AMD HDMI audio drivers. ime, they do all kinds of strange things. The problem I get is that they intermittently mute 7MC upon resuming from sleep. Sometimes it works perfectly for a couple of weeks, then it starts all over again every 3rd or 4th resume.

Just updated to 11.8 as well. So far, so good. Don't expect that will last.

 

[iCyborg]

Switching from HDMI could also be done on an OS level, perhaps caused by some Win update. Or the Win update exposed some bug in the AMD driver; just guessing since if you didn't update ATI driver, or played with some other CCC settings, it shouldn't just start having problems.

It could also be the TV - e.g. Dell U2410 had a number of HDMI audio issues that went away with A02 firmware. If you have access to another panel with HDMI, you could try connecting your HTPC to it to eliminate this possibility.

 

[bearxor]

Yes, the first thing you should do is completely uninstall the AMD Catalyst drivers. Then, reinstall them, choose manual setup and make sure you uncheck the HDMI Audio Driver.

That fixed my HDMI audio goofiness.. Now I just have a problem when if I turn my projector off and then back on, the screen gets under scanned. If I quit MCE and go to the desktop it resizes properly and then I can start MCE again, but what a PITA!

 

[notposting]

I never got either the 780G or discrete 4350 HDMI audio to work properly with 2 different TV's after a reboot. Even using an HDMI Detective didn't work all the time. PC just idles now...think it's using a 4350e now instead of the BE-2400 I had originally.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I never got either the 780G or discrete 4350 HDMI audio to work properly with 2 different TV's after a reboot. Even using an HDMI Detective didn't work all the time. PC just idles now...think it's using a 4350e now instead of the BE-2400 I had originally.

My friend has an Asus 3450 with HDMI output on his rig, hooked up to a 32" 1080P Sceptre display. He was also having issues with the sound not working on his rig, that would be randomly fixed by rebooting. He said that the problem went away when he installed SP1.

So I installed SP1 on my HTPC, and really, no improvement.

When display is asleep, when I wake it, it defaults to SPDIF or something, and I have to open "Sound options" under Device and Printers (right-click on the main computer icon), and then hover the mouse over the HDMI output. Magically, it gets detected and becomes the main device again.

So strange, that it would suddenly start acting up like it did.

Note that I had updates set to "Manual", not "Auto-update". So it wasn't some windows update that changed things.

I did do all of the updates when I installed SP1. Still has the issue.

 

[bearxor]

Did you uninstall the Catalyst software and reinstall it without the HDMI audio driver?

 

[Tempered81]

Did you uninstall the Catalyst software and reinstall it without the HDMI audio driver?

Does HDMI audio work if you do not install Catalyst drivers?