HDMI Out Sound Problems

I've performed all the updates listed in the Missing Keystrokes Bios Fix Thread and now I'm having problems related to sound output via HDMI Out on a Sony 52". I'm really regretting following through with all the updates on my Asus G73JH-A2 now albeit it does seem like the keystroke problem is a bit improved (not sure if it's placebo). It seems like there's some sort of conflict with the Realtek drivers which never existed before. I've now spent the last 2 hours installing and re-installing different drivers without fixing the problem. Here is what I'm dealing with:

Realtek 2.56: Sound via HDMI Out does not work at all...Image will display but sound outputs via laptop speakers only.

Realtek 2.55: Sound via HDMI Out works but any program that has sound will stall for about 30 seconds to a minute before working. Once audio begins playing (say from winamp) I can open up any other program w/ sound (e.g., a video) without a problem and the sound will play concurrently. However, once I close both winamp and the video and try to start something else that has sound, the program will stall again as if the sound card needs to initialize or warm up.

Realtek Drivers posted on Asus G73JH support page (6016122): When installing these drivers, I get a SRS audio device not detected error? Sound via HDMI out also stalls.

Realtek Drivers posted on Asus G73JW support page (6016162): Same as Realtek 2.55 above and what I've settled with for the time being...

I've been uninstalling the drivers via the Uninstall a program feature in Win7 and have also tried uninstalling the 2 "High definition audio devices" that appear in Device Manager before installing fresh drivers. Currently under Device Manager I have the following devices after reinstalling the 6162 drivers:

Bluetooth Hands-free Audio
High Definition Audio Device
PlayOn Virtual Audio Device
Realtek High Definition Audio

Does anyone know what is causing the conflict?

 

What is the PlayOn Virtual Audio Device? Also, why is the "Realtek High Definition Audio" and "High Definition Audio" both present? The High Definition Audio is Microsoft's driver for the Realtek chipset, I don't know why they're both present at the same time.

 

Can you let me know what devices you have listed under Sound, Video, and Audio Controllers and which Realtek drivers you are using? Should I go ahead and uninstall the "High Definition Audio"? For some reason, windows installs 2 High Definition Audio devices after I uninstall the Realtek drivers.

 

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8812/capturebu.png

Not sure if thats what you're looking for but here you go.

Yes, definitely try uninstalling the "High Def Audio" device and reinstall the Realtek Driver. I'm using R2.56

 

Thanks. I started from scratch by uninstalling the Realtek drivers and then used Driver Sweeper in safe mode to be sure I removed all traces of any old drivers. I then re-installed R2.56 as well as the R2.55 ATI HDMI Driver so my device manager now looks like yours. Unfortunately, I'm still having the stalling issues when outputting sound via HDMI out.

Any other ideas?

 

I would check the temps of the GPU, make sure your not using power saver mode and maybe try a different HDMI cable if possible. It is kind of weird for sound to lag.

 

Uninstall your Realtek drivers, and then use Driver Sweeper and CCleaner to get rid of legacy settings and orphan files. Then reinstall the Realtek Audio 2.56 first, then the HDMI drivers 2.55.

Sounds to me you have some registry legacy settings issue.

 

That's what I thought at first but I've done what you've suggested except the CCleaner step. I did some more research by googling ATI HDMI audio lag and it seems like there are others who are experiencing the same problem but I didn't find a solid fix.

Could there be some kind of incompatibility issue with the Cat 10.12's or possibly the new beta 4 bios?

 

We really won't know the answer to that until 11-01 comes out.

 

This probably won't help, but I'll throw it out just on the off chance [and because I have to do this everytime I switch audio sources, on my G73 AND my desktop]

I actually have to right click on the sound icon in the taskbar, select "playback devices" and disable the one I'm not using, forcing the other to default.

 

Or you can right click the non-default and set it as default.

 

Uhm, whenever I plug in my HDMI cable, my system will automagically change to HDMI-Out as default.

 

I've recently updated to the latest Cats 11.4 preview and am still having the same problem. Just wanted to bump this thread before I reformat just in case someone has a good fix.

I've also tried reinstalling the realtek drivers along with the hdmi audio out with ccleaner and driversweeper before hand to get rid of any legacy registry settings but the lag still exists.

For future reference, since the ati catalyst drivers contain HDMI audio out as well, should I be unchecking this during the installation?