Amd Radeon HD 7970 hdmi audio won't output audio from media players

spikeyseth

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Jul 9, 2012
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iTunes, Foobar2000, WinAmp, and WMP all have the same problem, the HDMI audio out on my card has been screwed up for these applications since the latest driver downloaded.
Basically the sound either doesn't play at all, or drops in and out at random or regular intervals. There is no pattern to this.
This is only true for media player applications; all other sound outputs just as it did before the update, be it games, youtube, windows sounds, whatever.
This is also only a problem with the HDMI audio out from the card. The built in audio chipset on my motherboard doesn't have this issue, but because I don't have a separate speaker system, its either through the HDMI on my to the speakers on my TV (which i use as a monitor) or use headphones through the audio chipset output.

Can anyone think of a way that this could be fixed? Is this a common issue? Is something just plain borked?

Thanks in advance, this is really starting to bug me.
 

fantastik250

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Are you able to roll back your drivers?

Go to Device Manager, click on Display Adapters, and right-click your video card, select properties, go to the Driver tab and rollback driver.
 

ebbote59

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Apr 17, 2012
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Go to your speaker icon on the bottom right of your screen, right click it, it will be playback devices, set your digital playback device as default.
When you want to go back to speakers you will have to go back and set
them as default.
 

spikeyseth

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Jul 9, 2012
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Okay guys thanks so far :) 1) I will try rolling back the drivers, thanks for that 2) it's not a cable, but thanks. I don't have a mini HDMI to HDMI cable so I can't try the other ports, but if it were a connector issue, why does it only have problems with certain software? 3) I knew about selecting the correct playback device, it's the first thing I checked. That wouldnt explain the random dropouts.

Thanks for the advice, keep suggestions coming. I'll try rolling backs he drivers ASAP
 

spikeyseth

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Jul 9, 2012
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rolled back the drivers, but no joy :( the dropouts are less frequent now, but still there. once about every 5 seconds or so. I have noticed it is also happening with windows sounds, and the sound of videos played through the steam client (trailers and such) most internet videos and all games are still unaffected. Help? :mad:
 

Kevskies

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Jul 15, 2012
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I have the exact same problem with you. All sounds on games or web browsers work perfectly fine, but audio from media players or window sounds stutter and go on and off.. :fou:

I've just bought my 7970 card and right after installation there was this problem, was wondering if it was the card or the drivers.

My 5850 was working fine with hdmi audio but not this one
 

Kevskies

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Jul 15, 2012
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Im not really sure what did it but its fixed.

I just completely uninstalled all ati drivers and reinstalled.

and BAM, no more sound cutting out
 

JohnnyTex

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Aug 21, 2012
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Uninstalling worked for me.

I uninstalled CCC completely with uninstall programs, when i did that a bubble popped up saying sound driver successfully installed. (Strange) Then I reinstalled CCC 12.6 but checked custom install and unchecked AMD HD Audio Driver.

Working Ok now
 

staticks

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Oct 13, 2011
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I am having the exact same problems as the OP. I just got an HD 7950, and the sound works perfectly fine in Youtube or games. But there is no sound (or intermittent sound) coming out when I'm playing an mp3 file or video file using Windows Media Player or Windows Media Player Classic. This is so infuriating. What's REALLY strange is that the sound in Windows Media Player magically works when I'm playing a Youtube video at the same time! But there's no sound if I just play Windows Media Player alone.

A little info of my setup:
1) I am using the HDMI audio from my HD 7950, going through a Harmon/Kardon AVR-254 receiver.
2) I've tried using the latest stable AMD Catalyst drivers (12.10) as well as the latest beta drivers (12.11).
3) My PS3's HDMI audio works perfectly through the exact same receiver/setup.
4) The previous GPU I had (GTX 560 ti) HDMI audio also worked perfectly.
5) I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers 4-5 times, but nothing helps. I uninstalled the previous Nvidia drivers before installing the AMD drivers.

Please, if anyone could offer any suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. This is extremely frustrating that I am experiencing such inexplicable audio problems with the first AMD videocard I've ever purchased, yet I've had zero problems out of the box with Nvidia products and other products.

Here are some pics of my Sound Devices and audio drivers:

sounddevices.png

amdhighdefinitionaudiod.png

amdhighdefinitionaudiod.png
 

staticks

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Oct 13, 2011
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Right now, my workaround in order to hear anything from Windows Media Player is to freaking open a web browser and have a tab with a Youtube video running (paused)! That is just absolutely ridiculous that I have to do that!

Edit #1:
This problem seems to have something to do with 2D/3D (High Performance Mode) on AMD graphics cards. Because when I turn off "Hardware Acceleration" on Youtube videos, the above workaround/trick doesn't work at all. According to this thread (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/358266-33-7950-high-performance-mode), High Performance Mode is turned off when you switch off Youtube or Flash Video "Hardware Acceleration" to off.

The question is then, how do I keep the graphics card running in "High Performance (3D)" mode?

Edit #2: According to the last post of this thread (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2257705#13), the audio problems are caused by the idle clock being too low. The poster suggests raising idle clock to 500MHz.

Would raising the idle clock void the warranty of my videocard?
 

ttcboy

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Jul 14, 2006
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Set ur HD7950 as default audio playback device in the "Sound and audio device" under control panel.
 

staticks

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Oct 13, 2011
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If you would look at the pictures I posted, I already have the "AMD High Definition Audio Device" set as the default device.
 

ttcboy

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Jul 14, 2006
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Sry abt that coz i'm reading from my office and it have web blocking system in place, so, i can't access to certain sites. In this case, imageshack is one of them.

Can't think of any other cause at the moment.
 

Evilyakusa

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May 25, 2013
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So what I did, I was having the same problem, was I went into my catalyst control center, under the my digital flat pannels i went to LCD overdrive and enabled it, now the audio works perfectly, hope this helps.