No digital audio on GA-H55N-USB3

[LK1]

Hi,

I am having a frustrating problem with a new HTPC build featuring the gigabyte mini-itx board.

I have the following components:
GA-H55N-USB3 Mini ITX
core i3-550
Asus Blu ray drive
WD Green 1.5TB
4GB G Skill DDR3 1600 ("ripjaws" slightly modified for cooler)
Scythe Big Shuriken cooler
Lian LI PC-Q07 case
Seasonic fanless 400w power supply
OS: Windows 7 pro 64 bit

I was able to boot up and install windows 7 pro 64 bit without difficulty. I have not however been able to produce digital audio of any sort. The mb has an optical/SPDIF output and can supposedly output over HDMI as well. I set the Azalia HD audio Codec in the BIOS to "auto".(The only other option is disable). I installed the Realtek HD driver. There are options for digital output and digital optical output. I made the digital optical output the default device.

I connected it at first to a circa 2002 Denon receiver. I had no luck at first. Finally, I got some audio but it was soon followed by horrendous interrupting beep/buzzing noises. This ended up being consistent. Next, I tried a different setup with an HDMI capable tv. I changed the setting to "digital" on the realtek manager. This time there was no audio whatsoever.

Has anybody had any similar experiences? Any suggestions? Could this be a 64 bit issue?

Thank you in advance,

 

[spooky2th]

Without looking at your manual, I think that you should undo the digital optical setting. It should be regular digital if I'm not mistaken. Anyways, I'd check out all the Bios audio settings in the manual.

 

[LK1]

Hi,

Again I adjusted the only audio setting in the bios to enable HD audio. I emailed gigabyte tech support. I enabled the HDMI output(tv) device. I had audio but unfortunately had the incessant beeping back again. At this point I updated the intel graphics driver. No improvement. I reinstalled the latest realtek hd audio driver. No improvement. I even reinstalled the realtek lan driver as I read about a similar issue regarding that software. No improvement. Next I started removing unnecessary software one by one. I exited and uninstalled Gigabyte's Easytune software, which I really don't like anyways. The problem went away. Normal sound output over HDMI. I searched and haven't seen this problem described before. It ended up being an easy fix though.

 

[LK1]

Best answer selected by LK1.

 

[jaquith]

^Yes NEVER use Gigabyte Utilities or for that matter ANY MOBO Utilities; they cause sooo many bizarre and unusual oddball problems I lost count. The only utility that's okay is the USB on/off and only if you need that feature.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar