Motherboard Sound via Graphics Card HDMI ??

aesmith

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Dec 15, 2008
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Hi,

I have an Asus EAH4550 video card, in a P5Q Pro motherboard with onboard Realtek audio. Is there any way I can get that audio output directed through the HDMI port on the video card, so I only need once connection from PC to screen?

The Realtek audio manager lists an HDMI output, and windows "Playback Devices" shows two HDMI devices, one Realtek and one Microsoft. None of these make any sound. The only way I can get sound out of the screen (HP w2228h) is by connecting to the "Line Out" green jack on the PC and selecting "Speakers" as the default.

Does there need to be a hard-wired connection between the card and the motherboard?

All this is in Vista Home Premium, I have dual-boot 64 and 32 bit installations.

Thanks, Tony S
 

chookman

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Make sure you have the most up to date catalyst drivers as they will contain drivers for the audio component.

On the PCB of the gpu is there a 2 pin header? This is generally used to connect a cable to the soundcard (in this card onboard motherboard) to passthrough the audio

EDIT: Stupid quick edit wont work... Had a bit more of a look, in your motherboard manual 2-32 is the S/PDIF passthrough header should go into your gpu somewhere
 

spathotan

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The ATI card dosent have a SPDIF connection, they dont even come with the cable. Only the Nvidia models do. Ive never seen a ATI card with a hard-wired audio connection.
 

aesmith

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Thanks everyone. It never occurred to me that the ATI board would have its own sound capability, but that set me on the right track. Now I know, you can see fleeting references to this in the product description, but no drivers or other useful info on how to enable it on either Asus or ATIs web sites.

I found a driver quite well hidden on Realtek's site, for "Realtek ATI HDMI" or something similar (the site now times out, so I can't refresh my memory).

With that installed, my second HDMI device is now named "Realtek HMDI Output" and subtitled "ATI HDMI Audio". That works !

To avoid confusion I've disabled the other Realtek HDMI output that does nothing at all. I assume that refers to the motherboard audio, but there's no motherboard HDMI socket so goodness knows what that's used for.

Full marks to ATI for including this function, but major black marks to both ATI and Asus for making it so ridiculously difficult to enable.

Tony S
 

Paperdoc

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Let me add a general comment. It is somewhat difficult to route the audio output from a sound card or on-board audio system through a video card. And yet the VERY common HDMI cable system can carry audio to a monitor if it has speakers to do the job. The MOST common way to get this to work now is to include a new audio output system on the video card, and send its output on the HDMI cable. However, this requires two "new" things. One: there needs to be a device driver for the audio system on the video card, in addition to the driver for the video system there. Usually the card's device installation utility will install both of those drivers for you. Two: Windows can use only ONE audio output device at a time, no matter how many devices exist in your system. Going through Control Panel to configure the Audio systems, you will find a place where you can specify the Default Device for each of three audio sub-systems: Playback, Recording, and MIDI Output. You must set the Default Playback Device to the correct one (the system on your video card) if you want the video card's system to send audio out on the HDMI cable. You can change this setting any time you want - for example, if you want to send audio from the mobo system out to an amplifier / speaker separate system, or out to your front panel headphone jack.

Given this, it also is common that, when the two video card drivers are installed, that utility also will make this change in Windows' configuration for you, which can be handy. However, it has caused confusion for people who wanted to continue to use output from the mobo system and its rear jacks, and find there is no sound there!