Please Help... hd7850 HDMI audio no 5.1 and dropouts driving me NUTS

I got a new HD7850 which is performing great when it comes to graphics but the sound output over HDMI is really driving me insane, ive searched and found a few similar issues on this forum but no conclusive fixes that i could see. Im on Catalyst 12.8 but ive also tried 12.7, im using an i5 2500k with an msi p67 motherboard.

Plus im not sure i have seen one person with both problems.

No matter what i do i cant seem to get 5.1 audio to work, im limited to selecting stereo in the audio options, after various uninstalls and re installs of the AMD catalyst and motherboard audio drivers i did once get it to allow selecting surround sound, which worked, including bit streaming, but then mysteriously when i restarted it reverted back to stereo.

The other problem im having though is that with stereo sound and also when i had surround working for a day im having intermittent sound dropouts for a split second where my receiver (sony strdh-820) visibly looses contact with the PC sound output then finds it again (the input is displayed on the receiver display).

Im really hoping someone will be able to help because as i said its driving me crazy, i cant believe AMD still dont seem to have sorted the drivers out. If i cant get the damn thing working i'll be scrapping it in favour of a gtx 660 (way over budget but hopefully it will actually work)

... I'll just add that im reasonably sure its nothing to do with the card because ive tried an HD7770 with the same results.

 

You try the newest drivers HDMI audio drivers from realtek and not just the ones included in the AMD drivers? I don't have a receiver that accept HDMI audio my self so i cant see if it works for me. Also your motherboard audio is not used when your using the HDMI audio output of your video card. Unless your onboard audio happen to be realtek too,but I doubt realtek includes both HDMI audio drivers and their onboard audio chip in the same driver package but i could be wrong.

 

Im pretty sure i have but i'll try again to make sure, ive tried so many combinations that its hard to remember now. It was a fresh windows install initially at least though.

 

Try this, http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117633

And the clocks that worked best for me are 300 core and 310mem, not sure how useful my clocks would be for you.

I was finally able to move away from Catalyst 12.4, the above also with 12.8 stopped all desktop flickering.

 

For the dropouts end the precess MOM.EXE and rename it so it don't run again.

 

After like 10 hours of research I finally solved this, I installed media player classic (with the Windows Essential Codec pack) and ffdshow. Then I opened a video that has 5.1 audio and right-clicked on the video screen, went to Filters, then ffdshow Audio Decoder, I checked the "Mixer" box, beside "Output speakers configuration" I selected "same as input", then back under the Mixer box I clicked "Input/Output", checked the "AC3" box, then clicked ok.