6

So far I have unsuccessfully googled for HOURS with no luck fixing this very annoying problem.

The settings is the following:

  • I have PC running Windows 7 RC (64-bit)
  • Video card is a ATI Radeon 4850 series card (Sapphire HD 4850 512MB to be exact)
  • The video card has HDMI out with built-in audio chip
  • I have an HDMI cable connecting the PC to a TV (Sony Bravia series)

The problem is that when I connect the HDMI cable to the TV, the ATI HDMI Sound output device disappears completely from the list of playback devices in Windows.

As a workaround I can restore the audio by re-installing the HDMI audio driver. However, when I disconnect the TV the driver disappears again. So basically, every time I want to watch stuff on my TV, I have to reinstall audio driver, which of course is VERY annoying.

EDIT: I have figured out that I do not need to re-istall the HDMI audio driver to restore sound; I only need to reboot my computer with the HDMI cable plugged in to restore the audio driver. This suggests that the problem has something to do with information passed from TV to computer, which makes my HDMI Audio driver disappear.

Are there any other, more elegant workarounds for this problem?

studiohack
  • 13,477
jsalonen
  • 9,241

5 Answers5

6

I solved it!

You need to unplug the HDMI cable before you do this because the driver doesn't show up in the list if you don't.

  • If you locate the driver in "Properties", right click the speaker down by the clock on your desktop toolbar. Select "Playback Devices". There you should have the "Digital audio (HDMI)" icon.
  • Click it and select "Properties" at the next window. Again, select "Properties". Now you get to yet another window.
  • At the bottom left corner there's a button that says, "Change Settings". Click it and if UAC needs permission, then allow it. OK, another window, klick the "Driver" tab, here you should click the "Rollback Driver" button.
  • And when it is done, voila: HDMI sound again!

Long description, short fix: You can access this exact driver from Windows Device Manager too if you know which one it is.

So, now you can forget about getting those extra cables and rebooting your machine every time you want to use your HDMI output

My specs: Packard Bell laptop, ATI RADEON 4570 Chipset, Latest reference drivers from amd.com, Windows 7 Home Professional 32bit

slhck
  • 235,242
user46985
  • 76
2

That sounds very annoying. How about leaving the TV connected all the time?

EDIT: Thanks for the clarification; now I understand a little better. You may be able to show hidden devices in Device Manager, then disable and re-enable the driver, but this still isn't much better than disabling the HDMI audio.

A better workaround might be to forget about the ATI HDMI audio device, and instead use the TOSlink or S/PDIF out from your sound card or motherboard, if your computer has one or both of those types of digital audio outputs. You can get long TOSlink and coax cables very cheap (I just bought a 25ft TOSlink cable for about $7 shipped from MonoPrice). Of course, if you don't need surround sound, you could use an equally inexpensive stereo RCA cable instead.

HDMI cables, on the other hand, are still very expensive. I'm looking at a similar wiring situation, but I haven't made a final decision yet where the TV and PC are ultimately going to be located. I'm looking at long cables from MonoPrice (some of the cheapest I've found) or Blue Jeans Cable (higher-quality cable certified for longer runs). I went ahead and bought the TOSlink cable because it's cheap enough that I can just buy a longer one later if I need it.

rob
  • 14,388
1

I ran into the same issue when I connected a settop box through my AV receiver: when somebody had watched TV, the HTPC had lost its HDMI audio and instead I got a message that an SPDIF connection was detected. Rebooting indeed solved the issue, but only until someone turned on the settop box again.

On another forum (can't recall the name) I found the suggestion to disable the AMD External Events Utility in msconfig, which indeed seems to work for me until now and which also makes sense I think. So have a try if this helps? And if it does, credits to the other guy of course..

Marco
  • 11
0

Found under Device Manager ยป ATI High Definition Audio Device. Right clicked and disabled/enabled.

This worked for me, it has something to do with plug and play. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.

slhck
  • 235,242
Jungalung
  • 1
  • 1
0

Same thing happened to me.

Click on speaker icon on the lower right hand side of your desktop:

enter image description here

Then click Playback devices.

Then Right click in the empty area of the list of devices, below all the rest of the devices, and click Show Disabled Devices:

enter image description here

Now you should see your disabled device:

enter image description here

capdragon
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