Hp dv9500t S/PDIF

Are either of the headphone jacks an the 9500 capable of outputing a digital signal? I thought headphone jack 2 was supposed to output digital but I cannot get it to work. I am using 3.5mm/coax for cable and have enabled realtek digital output as default.

My tv only has a DVI connection and I can make the transition from HDMI to DVI but I still need the digital audio.

 

it does have S/PDIF in the second port,
did you try configuring it from the Realtec HD Audio Manager and the Vista Sound Manager?

 

Yes I tried configuring Realtec HD Audio Manager and the Vista Sound Manager. In the screenshot below after cable is connected to headphones 1 or 2 the right side of the realtec audio manager says analog. should it say Digital?

 

what are you connecting the other side of the cable to?

 

A digital coax input on a denon reciever. I know the input on the receiver works properly because it when I connect digital out from my cd deck to this same reciever input it works.

 

Unfortunately, contrary to HP's product description, the 9500t does not have an S/PDIF capable headphone jack. S/PDIf is only output from the HDMI port. No one at HP will tell you this, and as noted this contradicts HP's own product description. I spent two weeks on the phone with India-based support trying to get this information, but no one seemed to know anything about the product I ordered. No one new what the heck I was talking about.

I had also tried a 3.5mm to RCA adapter to no avail. About a week into the process of communicating with HP, a phone rep insisted that the first headphone jack was an optical S/PDIF jack, not electrical. I obtained a 3.5mm mini-toslink adapter at a local store and found to my dismay that neither headphone jack emitted the expected red glow with the adapter installed.

I then visited a local computer store with preconfigured systems on display. I found one with a clearly labeled S/PDIF headphone jack. Taking a good look inside the labeled jack, the lens of the recessed red LED was clearly visible on the preconfigured model, and clearly absent from my CTO 9500t

I then gave up on HP and investigated external options. I tried the SB Live External 24 USB sound card. While this did add both an optical and coaxial S/PDIF port to my notebook, passing through the AC3 signal for Dolby Digital only worked with windows media center. When trying to play a DVD or HD DVD using quickplay 3.2 the SB Live external could not keep up and playback was improper with either no sound, jerky video or both.

Based on all this trial and error, as well as the somewhat cryptic "Important Audio Information" booklet that came with my CTO pc, I began to think that S/PDIF audio on the 9500t was only available via the HDMI port. Unfortunately I had no way to test this, and as mentioned HP support was clueless about everything.

Like you, I also only have DVI equipment, and searching for a solution to this whole dilemma yielded only two possible options.

One option is an adapter that separates the HDMI signal into both DVI and S/PDIF audio. The only such adapter I found is by a company called Gefen, but it costs nearly $300 and is only available online from stores with strict return policies and restocking fees.

The second option was to purchase an HDMI capable AV receiver. This is the option I decided to pursue. I looked at my nearly decade-old AV receiver and decided to see if I could find a deal on a new HDMI capable one at a store with a good return policy. I found a budget Yamaha HDMI receiver on sale and gave it a try. Sure enough. it received the S/PDIF audio from my 9500t's HDMI port.

after experimenting with the PC and this new receiver, here are some other things that HP won't be able to tell you about their CTO 9500t "Entertainment PC." :

1. When playing an HD DVD, only stereo PCM audio is sent over HDMI. It does not appear that multichannel PCM can be output over the PC's HDMI connection. Whether this is a limitation of hardware or software I cannot say. So if you want surround sound from an HD DVD over HDMI the only way is to have quickplay send the extracted 5.1 S/PDIF AC3 Signal.

2. Quickplay 3.2 is somewhat buggy when playing HD DVDs over HDMI, with the video appearing a little jittery and occasional other glitches.

3. Using Quickplay's built in update feature, I updated to version 3.6. This completely broke the passthrough of the S/PDIF AC3 surround signal. Only stereo PCM audio was possible over HDMI when playing HD DVDs with this new version. After uninstalling the new version and downgrading back to 3.2 I managed to get things working again.

It is a real shame that official PC support has gotten so bad that the only real means of solving technical problems is communities like this one. As sad as the situation may be, I'm glad this forum is here, and I hope this post will save someone else the unpleasant experience I had with HP support as well as all the time and energy I spent trying to find answers on my own.

 

Thank You for the detailed response.

I'm feeling a bit ripped off now being that the HP website specificaly says on it's description for dv9500. " You'll get high-quality sound from integrated Altec Lansing stereo speakers, and you get two stereo headphone jacks (one of which is S/PDIF capable)."
Is it a possibility that those models with an HDMI port have the S/PDIF on the headphone jack absent. Maybe HP was thinking that if digital audio is supplied through the HDMI port then we don't need it on the headphone jack.

 

I definitely think the second headphone port is optical S/PDIF (im pretty sure Hp wouldn't lie that badly ) there have been other people on the forums who have gotten this to work

 

the circled part in this picture shows that it is outputted from a jack (a headphone port):

 

Can you point me to a link with details on this? I searched high and low for such info regarding the 9500t and found nothing conclusive. I found details for other models, but not the CTO 9500t specifically.

I don't know how else to put it, but literally looking into the headphone jacks clearly shows an absence of optical output. I thought of taking a picture in the store to illustrate this, but the lighting made it too difficult to show the black plastic jack insert that my 9500t is clearly lacking. It's also worth noting that the store model's jack was clearly labeled SPDIF, while my 9500t has no such marking by either headphone jack.

As for the picture posted showing the output as an ATAPI jack, it is entirely possible that this refers to the HDMI port. I may be incorrect, but based on a cursory look at http://ata-atapi.com the term ATAPI refers to the physical connection to the system and not any particular functionality. This jack may be the headphone jack, an internal motherboard connection, or the HDMI connector. In fact the jack information for the built in speakers has exactly the same jack information as the "Realtek Digital Output."

 

ok, so i had a chat with hp tech support so heres the log:

 

This is a general document that covers several models. If you read the S/PDIF comment on page 12, you will see that it clearly says "(select models
only)." Some preconfigured 9500 series notebooks do indeed have S/PDIF headphone jacks. The CTO DV9500t does not.

If you own a CTO DV9500t, all you need to do to verify the absence of the S/PDIF headphone jack is try to use it. It is not there, with S/PDIF functionality moved to the HDMI port.

 

I have the same problem... i've bought a dv9548us last week and i only manage to get digital sound from the hdmi output, regarding that the quick user guide that came with the notebook states that i should have spdif output on my second headphone jack.

Too bad my receiver doesn't support hdmi, my TV supports it but i can't get the digital sound to pass to my receiver.

Is there any solution to retrieve the digital audio from the hdmi cable only? and split the audio and video so i can use a toslink cable to plug in my receiver and the hdmi or vga for my tv.

thanks.

 

Check this out, a chat transcript from HP support chat:

Daniel Negrao: Which kind of cable should i use in the second headphone jack?
Santiago: Just to confirm, Vista is installed on the Notebook.
Daniel Negrao: Yes.
Santiago: To get SPDIF output from the Notebook we have to set SPDIF as the defaulf sound from control panel.
Daniel Negrao: Yes, i have already done it.
Santiago: How long have you been experiencing this issue?
Daniel Negrao: Since i bought it, last thursday
Daniel Negrao: I wanna know if i'm using the right cable
Santiago: You have to use RAC cable to get audio through the SPDIF port.
Santiago: Please refer the weblink.
Santiago: http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/RCA-mini-spdif.html



So, the cable i have to use is the coaxial, i will try this later.

 

i bet if you search around, you'll find the cable (it will probably be expensive though)

 

Isnt this what you are looking for?

 

aah... stupid internet connection
sorry for the double post

 

The only device I have found that will split an HDMI signal into DVI and audio is this one: http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=3939
Be prepared for sticker shock, and while you can find it for a little less at other online retailers, it's still pretty close to the cost of a new HDMI capable AV receiver.

 

Well, if the port on the laptop is not marked as SPDIF, I guess it is not a SPDIF. I do not see why HP is to be blamed for this.

The port on my dv2122 is clearly marked as a SPDIF. I haven't tested it yet, but there have been numerous posts on this forum with users who have successfully got the SPDIF enabled port to work with the right cable.

 

In the case of the CTO DV9500t, HP is to be blamed for inaccurately stating "you get two stereo headphone jacks (one of which is S/PDIF capable)" on the HP store's product description. On top of that, no HP support staff are aware that this is a false statement, and they conduct all support for this feature without any knowledge that the feature has been moved to the HDMI port for this model. This is a problem for both the consumer and for HP, since the consumer does not get what they ordered, and HP spends time and money supporting a non-existent feature.

 

ANyone had any luck getting digital audio from the headphone jacks?

I have a DV9700t , do you think it is the same issue? I said that because there is not marked on any of the headphone jacks "S/PDIF". However, in the description of the computer online, it is stated.

I bought an adapter. It is a Male mini toslink 3.5mm to Female Toslink. I will let you know if that worked out.

 

I just purchased a DV9700t also and was not able to get s/pdif (optical) from either headphone jack. I used the mini toslink 3.5mm adapter you mentioned but still, no go. I've spent several hours with HP either online or on the phone, and they all think that my notebook is defective. Of course, now I'm starting to believe that the notebook has no existing feature, except through the HDMI port. Anyone else have more info?

 

Hi All,
Could anyone please tell me if someone has ever got the spdif digital output on headphone jack 2? I have a customized dv6500t and manual says headphone jack 2 doubles as spdif output port. I got a mini-toslink cable and connected one end in headphone jack and other in my AV reciever. The analog audio output works fine but I dont get any sound when I swithc to Realtek digital output in sound manager. The green bar on the payback devices tab goes up and down...indicating its playing sound in digital mode. My receiver has been working fine otherwise.

Can someone please advise? Should I waste some more money in getting a coaxial cable instead of this optical one?
Thanks.

Rgds,
Raman

 

Hi All,

Similar problem here with my DV9500 (DV9612TX). I think I am close to answering many of the questions here, but may be wrong. I'll still need to go out buy a cable to test this theory, but here's what I've come up with.

I can see why Toslink cables won't work if you can't see a red light coming from the 2nd headphone jack (Like mine). Optical = light = Toslink (mini or otherwise). So don't buy a Toslink cable unless you see a light or have some kind of electrical to optical coversion cable (I don't know if there is such a thing)

I too do not have a "SPDIF" label next to any of the 2 jacks, so the next assumption might be that audio was routed via HDMI on my model.

However I have not been able to get the Digital audio signal via HDMI, even with the assumed correct output settings as explored in the above posts.

As an aside, I haven't even been able to get audio via HDMI from my DVR. I still have to rely on an additional Coax cable via which the receiver picks up DTS/Dolby 5.1 fine when playing HD DVDs. From other posts, I epect that might be HDMI/DVR firmware issue.

Getting back to the laptop. I read on Wiki that SPDIF can be EITHER optical (Toslink) or electrical (Coax), so my current assumption is that the SPDIF (Digital) output might simply require a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (one end) to RCA/Coax (other end) cable .

I'll try it tomorrow and let you know unless someone points out where my logic has failed me miserably.

Regards

 

Sorry All.... It didn't work... anyone else?

 

BREAKTHROUGH!!!

Credit for this also goes to a mate for helping clarify the situation..

The majority of the laptop models don't have the SPDIF port. At first, i asked myself why go to the expense of having a Digital sound card installed???

The answer (although a bit disappointing) is that the external Digital audio connection we are all looking for come on HP's docking stations!!.

If you look at the following links, you'll see they all have an "orange" RCA-like port labeled 'SPDIF'. Surprise, surprise, the orange colour matches the Coaxial Digital Audio Input on my receiver. (Same as my DVR connection)

HP Quickdock Page
http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/notebook/notebook_hp/dock_solutions/1/accessories/ES631AA%23ABA

Quickdock Ports (closeup)
http://s7d2.scene7.com/skins/HPShop...fier=op_sharpen=1&image=HPShopping/es631aa_is

HP xb2000 Expansion Base
http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/notebook/notebook_hp/dock_solutions/1/accessories/PA399A%23ABA

HP xb3000 Expansion Base
http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/notebook/notebook_hp/dock_solutions/1/accessories/GY034AA%23ABA

Yes, I am i two minds. Disappointed that everyone is forced to buy an docking station just to get a Digital Audio port, but happy to now know how to get the bloody thing working.

Thanks to Meyer for his help. By the way, he's got a great home-based file/web/mail server setup, great for private hosting if you want to send him an email.. meyer at invizage.co.nz

Good luck all

Kelly

 

So for a laptop that doesn't have the S/PDIF port and instead has only 2 headphone ports, will the S/PDIF port on the HP laptop quickdock work?
I just got done speaking with a guy from HP tech support and he said that it only replicates the already existing ports and therefore it would not work. He may be another dumb HP tech support guy though and therefore who knows the true answer?

A customer from Newegg purchasing this HP Laptop Quickdock at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16834998049
Spoke of and I quote, "Remember, your laptop has to natively support SPDIF out and component out in order to obtain the benefit of those features from the dock." Therefore perhaps the tech guy is right and the HP Laptop Quickdock would not work as well?

If this solution does not work (The HP Laptop Quickdock), then perhaps an external usb sound card would do the trick. Quickdock is a better choice I think though.

I have a dv9500t. Just to clarify that. It has 3 ports in front for audio, 1 is microphone picture, one is a headphone with a 1 next to it and the 3rd port is a headphone with a 2 next to it. Apparently the dv9000t series has the 3rd as an S/PDIF port and that is where most people get confused I think (including me).


I hope we/I can find out if the Quickdock works for HP laptops that do not nativally have the S/PDIF port. Thanks to anyone who can supply a definate answer from personal experiance.

Mike

 

S/PDIF out on the QuickDock works on my DV9700t.

 

has anyone got the audio out from HDMI port to work on a receiver. I believe it wont do trueHD but should be able to do Dobly Digital?

 

You have to manually select SPDIF in the HP Quickplay software and then select a Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 audio track from the disc menus for Dolby Digital or DTS to be bitstramed to your receiver properly. It worked for me the one time I tried it anyway...(using quickplay 3.2-- newer versions seemed to break this ability at the time I was testing things out last year)

 

I have a Dv9500-series with GeForce/HDMI, and have had the same issues with not finding a usable SPDIF output. It does not say "SPDIF" in tiny letters by the headphone 2 jack -- unlike some other models which do say this. Tried mini-TOSlink optical cable -- no light visible, which matches the previous post suggesting that you can actually see that the jack is different on these models.

Finally, I have the 3000 expansion base with SPDIF co-axial (orange RCA jack) output. But I can't get any audio out of that signal either, even when switching the RealTek controls to use Digital as the default device (and the speaker output stops, so it thinks it's sending the sound somewhere...)

Basically, I think this model either (1) doesn't have that capability at all, or (2) is designed to only route it through the HDMI port, even though their support and documentation is so poor in this area that there seems to be much doubt about this too.

I have not tried HDMI audio yet but will give that a try next time I have access to an HDMI-ready monitor.

In any case, I see the lack of digital output as a serious shortcoming because I would really like to use this system as-is but send digital sound to an external receiver, and it seems that they have completely dropped the ball on this one.

 

I have the dv 9500 with the 3000 expansion base. SPDIF does work through the expansion base. Just be sure to restart the media app. that you were using after making the change to digital default in realtek.

 

Thanks for the info; I will give it another try.