My dad bought this older Lenovo computer off of ebay to use on his HDTV. Since about all he does is look at a few websites and play casual games, he figured it would be OK. Trouble is the built in video card doesn't have either a DVI or HDMI port on it so he has been running it through the VGA cable, which the TV locks at a max res of 1024x768. Trying to help him out, I start looking to find a cheap video card that: 1. Is half height and 2. Will let him use either a DVI to HDMI cable, or a HDMI cable, to connect it to the TV for a higher resolution. I find the Radeon HD 3450, which seems to fit the bill. I get it installed, install the drivers form the CD, power the system up, and viola running on 1920x1080. The only issue is, no sound over the HDMI cable. I check on ATI's web site, and find the HDMI audio driver. I try installing it with the CD driver, 10.3, and this seems to disable the HDMI port. After some work, I have the old drivers uninstalled and the new, 10.7 drivers on. HDMI port works about 50% of the time compared to 100% with the 10.3 drivers. I install the HDMI driver, HDMI port is disabled, not even detected any more. I uninstall and roll back to 10.3, HDMI port works again. So far I've tried installing 10.3 and installing 10.7 on top, I've tried installing 10.7 by itself, neither method will get the HDMI port to work 100% of the time with the 10.7 drivers, and installing the ATI HDMI driver always causes the HDMI port to be unrecognized. Why not stay with the included drivers you ask? They seem to randomly crash the system. In summary: 10.3 crashes the system 10.7 the HDMI port works 50% of the time 10.7 with HDMI audio driver, HDMI port is not recognized after installing. And on top of that, every time I install a driver on the thing I get a pop up telling me that required system files have been replaced with unrecognized versions. These system files are the Radeon driver files, I've verified this in the system log. If I uninstall the drivers, restart, and run driver sweeper then the files are still not deleted either. I cannot even delete them in safe mode, they are "protected system files." Now, if I go into safe mode with command prompt, I can delete them through the DOS box (and they stay gone), but upon restart when I go to install either Catalyst version, the "system files have been replaced" message comes up again. Not sure what's up with that, since I've never had an Nvidia driver give me this error. Anyhow, computer is a P4 3.40GHZ HD is 500GB Windows is XP professional SP3 with all updates My questions are how to get the HDMI driver installed so that: 1. The HDMI port is still recognized 2. The HDMI port outputs audio 3. A newer driver is used, so it doesn't crash the system (at least not as much as 10.3) A lot to read, but thanks for any help.
Format, clean driver install of 10.7. Ugly but a surefire way of ensuring it's not the rest of the system.
You could try Realteks ATI hdmi audio driver -> http://www.realtek.com/downloads/do...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false, people seem to have more success with these.
Computer came with windows preinstalled (supposed to be clean install after a HD wipe per the paperwork that came with it), a CD Key sticker on the case, and no install or repair CD, so I don't know if I want to go through all the effort to try and reinstall everything. As for the realtek drivers, I saw those mentioned while looking over these forums, the only issue being that on Sunday at least Realtek's website seems to be rather messed up. I can get to the download page, but cannot get the download to start. Occurring with both IE and Firefox. Firefox gives no error, but IE says "page loaded, with errors."
Formatting is not a good idea. To suggest it is just a blow off. Really. All that time and effort on a new PC that obviously JUST had the OS installed. There is a chance that you are getting audio only "some" of the time using those 10.7's due to monitor recognition: There is a problem wherein a monitor initializes its connection and identity to the graphic card, but after the monitor is turned off or "goes to sleep", that connection is lost and with it, the HDMI audio. This sort of problem has been experienced by many, including myself. The 8-series ATI drivers didn't seem to have this problem but they are out-dated now. Anyway, it would be useful to diagnose the problem by trying to figure out in what circumstances (while using the 10.7's w/o the HDMI driver installed) you get audio and in what circumstances you don't. Like, try turning the monitor off and on. AND try unplugging the HDMI cable and plugging it back in. This USUALLY works as a quick work-around when the source of the problem is as I described above because it refreshes the connection between the monitor and the card. If this works, you will understand the source of the problem, which will help you find a good solution. Also, you can just use this quick fix and save yourself time and aggrevation. Alternatively, as suggested above, you could try the Realtek audio driver. Sometimes, they are better than ATI's.
Been messing with it since I was able to get the Realtek drivers. Put bluntly, nothing has been able to get HDMI to have audio on this card. 10.6 drivers seem to be the golden ones, HDMI video works every single time I turn the computer on with these drivers installed. HDMI audio never works. I don't think it's that the computer isn't detecting the TV attached, I think it's that there's something with the detection of the card itself. The 10.6 drivers let me install the 10.7 HDMI audio driver, no issue at all with install, but there is NO HDMI audio device listed anywhere under Hardware Manager, nor is there an Audio option anywhere in the Catalyst control panel. In regards to the Realtek driver, when launched it begins an install and aborts, stating "no supported audio device found" or something to that effect. I've tried installs with the onboard sound card enabled, disabled, enabled with no drivers, disabled with no drivers, and in no combination does the computer ever list any Audio device at all, unless the onboard card is both enabled and has drivers installed. Since the video works though, I told him he might just want to buy a cheap pair of computer speakers if he doesn't care for the one single speaker built into the computer case, if he plans to keep using the video card. PS: About the only thing I haven't tried is a DVI to HDMI cable, but I'd read that DVI ports don't put out audio anyways, so I don't plan to try it in any case.
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=98648 Maybe you just need to enable the device? Set it as default? In windows 7, I either get my audio through my speakers or my SPDIF (realtek digital output). I don't get the sound simultaneously, rather I have to choose which one to be the default (in my playback devices tab) and I get audio only on the default. Perhaps your onboard sound is working and preventing the HDMI audio signal from going through the cable; overriding it. Check out the link above to see how to switch your audio stream from onboard to HDMI out. ps-If you have an HDMI port on your card and are using an HDMI-HDMI cable, that's fine. If you have a DVI port on your card, you need to use the DVI-HDMI dungle supplied with the card (along with an HDMI-HDMI) cable. This dungle is special and allows audio to be transferred. Normal DVI does not. Nor will a DVI_HDMI cable.
i gotta agree with the realtek ati hdmi audio driver, it works much better imo. with the regular audio driver, i find that the audio takes a while to get up to the correct volume when you first play any audio. so occasionally, you wont hear msn sounds or anything because theyre too short to trigger the volume increase. with the realtek driver, i havent had this issue.
Card has DVI, HDMI, and VGA connectors on it. No doggle was supplied with the card, nor does anything in the instructions or on the website for powercolor mention one is needed, as far as I can find. As for audio, as I mentioned there is no HDMI audio device detected. With HDMI audio drivers installed, onboard sound disabled, onboard sound drivers uninstalled, and no onboard sound card showing in device manager, there is still no listing for an HDMI audio source, or any other audio source for that matter. Going into "sounds & audio devices" through the control panel, there is no audio device detected, and on the audio tab there are no default devices to chose from as there is no drop box. It is grayed out. It's not a matter of choosing HDMI audio as an option, there's simply no option there to choose. The card is connected through the HDMI cable to the TV. The Realtek drivers will not install, they do not detect a valid audio device and abort.
If there is no Audio device in "Device Manager" then you cant install a driver to it. If so, it looks like the card is faulty.
Please try reinstalling mobo drivers (chipset drivers and all). Then reboot. Then install Realtek audio drivers. (and try a different one than the one you did before; perhaps it is faulty) Also, make sure audio is on... Click Start > Run and type in: services.msc - then click OK. In the new window - Scroll down to "Windows Audio", right-click on it and select Properties. Another new window - set the startup type to Automatic, click Apply and then click Start.
