Audio over HDMI with ASUS H87I-Plus not working

[ludovicchabant]

Hi there,

I built a new Mini-ITX HTPC based on the ASUS H87I-Plus motherboard. It's working fine except that I can't get any audio over the HDMI output.

I'm running Windows 8, I've updated the BIOS to the latest version, installed the Realtek Audio Driver from ASUS's website, and changed the BIOS setting for "S/PDIF Out Type" to "HDMI". Am I missing something? Is there a way to troubleshoot this effectively?

There's a few other threads with people having similar problems with ASUS motherboards, but I've either tried them (uninstalling the Realtek Audio Manager) or they don't apply (people with multiple outputs connected to multiple devices).

 

[Tradesman1]

Is video out via a discrete GPU or on-board graphics, if a card GPU what type

 

[smorizio]

also in the windows sound device manager is the right hdmi output set at the default audio device or is the realteck speaker set as default audio device??

 

[ludovicchabant]

Video output is only via the on-board graphics. My rig is pretty minimal: the H87I motherboard, an Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell CPU, 8Gb of DDR3 RAM, and a Kingston HyperX SSD hard drive, all inside an Antec ISK310-150 case (150W PSU). Nothing plugged besides power, ethernet, and HDMI out to my TV.

In the Windows sound device manager I can see both "Realtek Digital Output (optical)", which I suppose is the SPDIF output on the motherboard, and "Realtek HDMI Output", which is what I want (and is set as the default device)... when I revert the BIOS' SPDIF Out Type back to "SPDIF" instead of "HDMI", I see 2 Digital Outputs instead of one Digital Output and one HDMI Output... so that part seems to work as expected, I guess. It's just that there's no sound. When I right click on the "Realtek HDMI Output" and go "Test", the green volume bar shows that Windows is trying to play the test sound, but nothing comes from the TV. It used to work perfectly with my previous HTPC rig, so I know it's not the cable or the TV.

 

[raja@asus]

Have you installed the Intel display drivers? Should be audio with those. The realtek drivers are not for the HDMI output..

 

[ludovicchabant]

Mmmh that's an excellent point actually! I'm not sure if I installed the display drivers... I think I postponed it for later, when I would test how games perform on that rig... I'm away from home right now but I'll definitely test that on Friday when I get back.

In the meantime, I used a workaround by connecting the audio line-out to the TV to get the sound working... but that was tricky to get working. It was the TV's fault entirely, but I'm still going to post some info about it here just so other people can find it via Google search or something and save themselves some time and pain. My TV is a Samsung 6500 series HDTV and one of the HDMI inputs can be plugged to the DVI output on a PC, in which case you connect the sound separately (This is for PCs that don't have HDMI output). But even after that you still won't hear any sound on the TV unless you change the name of that input source to "DVI PC". I thought it was just a descriptive label you can put on your input sources, just like with any other TV, but it looks like on those Samsung models it actually changes the way the TV figures out where the sound is expected to come from... if you set it to "DVI PC", it will actually scan the auxiliary audio input.

 

[ludovicchabant]

So yeah that was it! With the Intel Graphics drivers installed, I can get the audio over HDMI working. Thanks!

 

[ashleyriot1]

FOR THE WIN! i have a samsung smart tv and this was the fix i was looking for. nice work.

 

[Gordon23]

So yeah that was it! With the Intel Graphics drivers installed, I can get the audio over HDMI working. Thanks!

Hi, I have a very similar setup with an MSI H87I motherboad.
All drivers vendor drivers were installed and BIOS up to date however under playback devices HDMI audio always shows as not plugged in and the driver manufacturer shows as Microsoft. SPDIF functions showing a Realtek driver.

After you resolved your issue did the HDMI audio driver show as Intel?

Thanks
G

 

[ludovicchabant]

@Gordon23: In the Device Manager I get 3 entries in the "Audio Inputs and Outputs":

* Digital Audio (HDMI): this shows up with a Microsoft driver
* Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
* SAMSUNG (Intel(R) Display Audio): it says Samsung because that's my TV. The driver is also from Microsoft, but it reports the "Location" as "on Intel(R) Display Audio" in the properties.