Really funky problem here. Question at the bottom, just bear with it. Brand new system: 3930k, 16gigs ram, p9x79 dlx mobo and a Sapphire 7970 card. Fresh Win 7 64 installation. As per my previous system everything is routed via HDMI to my Onkyo HTX-22HDX receiver then onto the TV. This worked perfectly with my previous AMD 5 series card. Same HDMI cables, all verified. Initially I had 12.6 official installed. Everything worked except HDMI audio would cut out every 5 seconds (Windows desktop sounds and mkvs). For some odd reason playing a youtube clip would miraculously fix the sound for all audio streams. Weirdest thing. I thought it was a handshake issue but couldn't get anywhere with it. Upgraded to 12.7, same issue. Removed just the HDMI driver (reverted back to the MS one), same issue. Finally got it kind of fixed by rolling back to 12.3. HDMI audio works well now except occasionally switching between inputs it would loose the handshake and HDMI audio out would be disabled until a full reboot. So two part question, first one for my curiosity. How on earth does youtube (flash) play dandy and fix the cutouts yet any other sound cuts out? Is there a hybrid driver based on something more recent that someone has tested with a 79 series card to work via HDMI? I've disabled the AMD event switcher service but is there any other trick out there that can prevent the hdmi disconnect I get when switching inputs (usually happens if I've switched away from my PC input for a fair amount of time). Appreciate any tips on this. P.S. I now have it wired via a DP adapter to HDMI (mostly for cable tidiness)
i had something simular but it had to do with the graphics card over riding my sound card as default device. So i will ask do you have a sound card in your system aswell?
I have the exact same issue! I just simply went down to the 12.4s. No issues there... but I really wish I could get the better performing drivers.
I do, realtek built into the mobo. It's not really overriding per se. A process is at some point disabling the HDMI out. I'm assuming you're referring to the switching issue.
Oh so it's not just me going crazy then. I tried 12.4 but had to go down to 12.3 to resolve the cutting out problem. Funny thing is looking at the volume bar you don't see any interruptions yet sound was cutting out.
well, i'm glad i'm not alone. i posted about this @ r3d in this thread here: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1336940832&postcount=92 the only fix i've found is to use something (trixx, ab, gputweak) to increase 2d clocks to a minimum of 500mhz. the reason why playing a flash video in the background makes your audio work is because flash video is accelerated which pushes the videocard to clock up from default. so far, no driver change has fixed this issue. i have the asus 7970dcii so i emailed asus about it and they just told me to exchange the card @ my retailer. did so. same issue. i tried to find information about what chip they're using in these cards now because installing the realtek drivers (which worked on all previous gen cards that had audio) worked without any issues. installing realtek drivers now causes no audio to be detected as "plugged in." glad to know i'm not the only one. i thought i was going crazy over here. if you try the 500mhz 2d clocks, let me know if it works for you.
We should start a club on this one Well, as I mention going back to 12.3 fixed the audio pauses for me but it was a complete driver rollback not just hdmi driver update. Actually this would make sense given what you mention regarding 2D speed. I'm assuming 12.3 drivers up the clock speed on non-graphical tasks. Thanks for the tip. I'll try updating to 12.7s and up the clock speed. Would MSI afterburner work on this? Is it that the card clocks down when not in 3D mode? Looking at my core clock speed it's stuck on 925 so I'm guessing new drivers put it into a sort of power saving mode.
Update. Upgraded to the 8.982 drivers and also flashed the BIOS to the Ghz edition reference BIOS (on my powercolor 7970 v2). HDMI issue is still there. Sigh. I'm still getting this strange screen tear/flickering mostly during games (I hear I'm not alone). Sort of like a bad signal flicker though sound doesn't cut out. This has been happening since day one. I'm using a monoprice mini-DP to HDMI adapter to my receiver. It seems to do it HDMI-HDMI also. Wondering if anyone has fixed the flicker problem?
Having the Same Problem but not only does my HDMI audio not connect my Realtek Optical drops out too.. Would seam there is something between the 2 as Realtek provide an ATI HDMI audio driver
Having a similar issue. HDMI Audio works fine for all video games but cuts intermittently for video and music playback. The sound bar in Sound Devices shows constant sound output, but I'm just not hearing it. On my receiver I can see the Dolby Digital symbol blinking as the audio cuts out and in. This is with the 12.7 and 12.8 drivers. Had no issue with 12.4 drivers, might have to revert back to those.
got my sound mostly sorted.. Un-install all realtek drivers, driver sweep for Realtek and Clean Un-install All AMD drivers driver sweep and clean install R2.70 Realtek drivers check that its not tied to HDMI (No picture of HDMI device in realtek HD audio manager if its there un-install realtek ATI HDMI audio) Install Cat12.8 n walla sound. But for some reason my video playback files are a little screwy grr but at least the sound work's and stays connected..
OMG!!! Here's the fix!!! http://www.overclock.net/t/1295464/intermittent-hdmi-audio-output-on-7970-12-8-drivers
if your mobo has realtek, but since he said install realtek's hdmi driver (instead of amd's), it makes sense to end up having the realtek manager (i havent tried this myself, i dont use hdmi)
I can confirm the link provided by Derko1 works using Catalyst 12.8 in both Windows 7 and 8 I have found that 300 core and 310 memory works well and think the key objective is to get the voltage to bump up to the next step, for me this is from 0.799 to 0.939. This change brings up my idle temp about 5-10° on a hot day but it doesn't increase the power consumption by any noticeable amount luckily. I just need to see if any flickering occurs and hopefully no stability issues.
