Surround Sound option Grayed out with HD4870 and HDMI connection

B

blandishment

New Member
I just built an HTPC wiith Vista64 SP1 and am having a problem. I have a DFI LanParty X58-T3H6 motherboard and a VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 Video card with HD audio. I have an HDMI cable going to my Sony AV receiver and all I get is Stereo Audio. The subwoofer never comes out of standby nor does the AV receiver indicate anything but a stereo input.

I have the RealTek HDMI audio device installed and it says it is working properly under Device Manager. Under properties all that is offered is Stereo speakers. Surround Sound is shown as an option but it is grayed out and not selectable. All drivers are up to date as of two days ago, and I have the on-board sound of the motherboard disabled in its BIOS.

Other HDMI devices, such as my XBOX 360, do surround sound through the Sony AV receiver.

VisionTek support told me to install the HDMI RealTek driver, but that's all the help they've been able to give me.

If anyone has some additional insight on this, it would be most appreciated!

Thank you!
 

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System One

Honestly I think that HDMI can sometimes be flaky. I know you said the 360 works fine, but a PC is another animal entirely. I've Never used a HDMI connection to carry BOTH vid/sound FOR THE PC (will run HDMI for vid, but always run separate sound).

If your PC is close to the AV receiver.....A suggestion just to test is -- enable the MB sound and run a cable from the MB to your receiver (digital Optical [toslink] OR coax digital) if you have it, or you can do 3.5mm analog with a Y cable that is 3.5mm to RCA.

How To Connect Your PC to Your Home Stereo or Home Theater | Hardware Secrets

See if that works & then you know the bottleneck is the HDMI somehow & maybe drivers will fix it later, but for now you have (separate) sound that works.
 

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System One

Thanks for the suggestion, though I bought the 4870 specifically for it's ability ti use HDMI for audio/video. Previously I used a Radeon HD 2600 XT with HDMI and that worked fine.

I know I could use optical to carry the audio, but I recently bought the new recevier because it had enough ports for all my HDMI devices and let me get rid of a lot of cabling.

As a last resort I could certainly do this but I went with this particular card since ti was supposed to support audio/video over HDMI. The fact that Stereo works with it tells me something weird is going on as obviously some sound is being carried out the HDMI port.

Almost all the research I did online before posting here were cases where there was no sound at all from the HDMI output, just video.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply!
 

My Computer

System One

Have you actually installed the driver? You can find it here Realtek (you will have to accept the disclaimer before proceeding). The item you want is ATI HDMI Audio Device.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dwarf Dwf/11/2012 r09/2013
    CPU
    Intel Core-i5-3570K 4-core @ 3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge) (OC 4.2GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M
    Memory
    4 x 4GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B (16GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI GeForce GTX770 Gaming OC 2GB
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition on board solution (ALC 898)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ViewSonic VA1912w Widescreen
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900
    Hard Drives
    OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA III x2 (RAID 0)
    Samsung HD501LJ 500GB SATA II x2
    Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1TB SATA II
    Iomega 1.5TB Ext USB 2.0
    WD 2.0TB Ext USB 3.0
    PSU
    XFX Pro Series 850W Semi-Modular
    Case
    Gigabyte IF233
    Cooling
    1 x 120mm Front Inlet 1 x 120mm Rear Exhaust
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000 (USB)
    Mouse
    Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000 for Business (USB)
    Internet Speed
    NetGear DG834Gv3 ADSL Modem/Router (Ethernet) ~4.0 Mb/s (O2)
    Other Info
    Optical Drive: HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH10LS30 SATA Bluray
    Lexmark S305 Printer/Scanner/Copier (USB)
    WEI Score: 8.1/8.1/8.5/8.5/8.25
    Asus Eee PC 1011PX Netbook (Windows 7 x86 Starter)
Can you post some screenshots of the properties to illustrate what you mean? Please show all property pages of the device.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dwarf Dwf/11/2012 r09/2013
    CPU
    Intel Core-i5-3570K 4-core @ 3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge) (OC 4.2GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M
    Memory
    4 x 4GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B (16GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI GeForce GTX770 Gaming OC 2GB
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition on board solution (ALC 898)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ViewSonic VA1912w Widescreen
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900
    Hard Drives
    OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA III x2 (RAID 0)
    Samsung HD501LJ 500GB SATA II x2
    Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1TB SATA II
    Iomega 1.5TB Ext USB 2.0
    WD 2.0TB Ext USB 3.0
    PSU
    XFX Pro Series 850W Semi-Modular
    Case
    Gigabyte IF233
    Cooling
    1 x 120mm Front Inlet 1 x 120mm Rear Exhaust
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000 (USB)
    Mouse
    Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000 for Business (USB)
    Internet Speed
    NetGear DG834Gv3 ADSL Modem/Router (Ethernet) ~4.0 Mb/s (O2)
    Other Info
    Optical Drive: HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH10LS30 SATA Bluray
    Lexmark S305 Printer/Scanner/Copier (USB)
    WEI Score: 8.1/8.1/8.5/8.5/8.25
    Asus Eee PC 1011PX Netbook (Windows 7 x86 Starter)
Pictures for the RealTek HDMI device and properties are attached
 

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My Computer

System One

:cool: I fixed this last night.

My RealTek properties were only showing left and right speakers as was Vista's control panel. While I had previously uninstalled the VisionTek and RealTek drivers and then reinstalled them, which did not work, I did something different last night. I uninstalled both drivers, went to AMD's website and downloaded their version for the HD 4870. Not only did it fix my audio problem, but my 3DMark score went from 15,200 to 16,000! Thanks to those who offered suggestions, I appreciate it!
 

My Computer

System One

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