(Solved)J4205-ITX HDMI output

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   I have the same problems with the J4205-ITX.But in my case, the situation was the following:
On a Full-HD monitor, everything was fine.
On a 4K TV (Telefunken A50U445A) it showed:
- BIOS: horizontal flickering lines, sometimes black screen
- Windows 10: (latest Intel graphics driver): horizontal flickering lines during boot, after that OK. But: 4K playback isn't smooth, neither in WMP nor in Kodi.
- Linux Mint 18.3 cinnamon: I had to experiment with the drivers and libraries, ended up with i965-va-driver and va-api libs installed manually. Also had to update the kernel to 4.11. With that, I had smooth playback in Kodi, but black screen on the 4K TV. 

Then I installed the Intel NUC firmware update and the results were:
Win 10: no change
Linux: finally a picture on the 4K TV, but flickering horizontal lines.

Then I began experimenting with all of my HDMI cables and all of the TV's HDMI ports.
I finally found a combination, that gives a fault-free picture.
Playback in Kodi is smooth, even for 4K movies with high data rate, but the processor load is rather high, so when the processor is doing something else in the background, the playback lags.
Also, the picture is somewhat pale, but that can be corrected with Kodi's contrast and brightness settings.
Only the lastest Kodi 18 nightly works, no older versions.

I think, that 4K playback on Intel graphics is still in it's infancy.
It works somehow, but without reserves, so it feels like playing full HD on a Raspberry Pi 1.
The J4205-ITX board seems to be not well tested, and obviously ASRock doesn't bother delivering them with already updated BIOS and firmware.

Oh, and BTW: forget about playing games on this board. The 3D performance of the intel graphics is rather poor.

I planned to use this board as a party PC, for playing Ultrastar Deluxe and watching movies. It'll do the job, but nothing more. And installing all the experimental video acceleration stuff wasn't fun. Neither was having to crawl through the web to scrape up all the needed information to get it going.
I wouldn't do it again, and I wouldn't recommend this board to others.

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uhrheber Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 08 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote uhrheber Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 08 Jan 2018 at 5:52pm
	I have the same problems with the J4205-ITX. But in my case, the situation was the following: On a Full-HD monitor, everything was fine. On a 4K TV (Telefunken A50U445A) it showed: - BIOS: horizontal flickering lines, sometimes black screen - Windows 10: (latest Intel graphics driver): horizontal flickering lines during boot, after that OK. But: 4K playback isn't smooth, neither in WMP nor in Kodi. - Linux Mint 18.3 cinnamon: I had to experiment with the drivers and libraries, ended up with i965-va-driver and va-api libs installed manually. Also had to update the kernel to 4.11. With that, I had smooth playback in Kodi, but black screen on the 4K TV. Then I installed the Intel NUC firmware update and the results were: Win 10: no change Linux: finally a picture on the 4K TV, but flickering horizontal lines. Then I began experimenting with all of my HDMI cables and all of the TV's HDMI ports. I finally found a combination, that gives a fault-free picture. Playback in Kodi is smooth, even for 4K movies with high data rate, but the processor load is rather high, so when the processor is doing something else in the background, the playback lags. Also, the picture is somewhat pale, but that can be corrected with Kodi's contrast and brightness settings. Only the lastest Kodi 18 nightly works, no older versions. I think, that 4K playback on Intel graphics is still in it's infancy. It works somehow, but without reserves, so it feels like playing full HD on a Raspberry Pi 1. The J4205-ITX board seems to be not well tested, and obviously ASRock doesn't bother delivering them with already updated BIOS and firmware. Oh, and BTW: forget about playing games on this board. The 3D performance of the intel graphics is rather poor. I planned to use this board as a party PC, for playing Ultrastar Deluxe and watching movies. It'll do the job, but nothing more. And installing all the experimental video acceleration stuff wasn't fun. Neither was having to crawl through the web to scrape up all the needed information to get it going. I wouldn't do it again, and I wouldn't recommend this board to others.

Zzenz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12 Dec 2017 Status: Offline Points: 13	Post Options Post Reply Quote Zzenz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 08 Jan 2018 at 10:04pm
	Yes I am at the point of damning a refund or a replacement for something that actually works!

uhrheber Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 08 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote uhrheber Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jan 2018 at 4:25pm
	What I also wanted to mention: One of my HDMI cables is a cheap 5m long one, from a dollar store. Surprisingly, it works very well with a 4K signal sent from my notebook, an Odroid C2, and an Android TV box (Zorke Z6). With the J4205-ITX it doesn't work at all, regardless of what the resolution is. So I think that the DisplayPort to HDMI converter on the board is just crap, and produces a weak and maybe out of spec signal. I'm thinking of sending the thing back, it's not worth the trouble.

rosch Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 26 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote rosch Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 26 Jan 2018 at 11:59pm
	Hi, same problem here with j3455-itx on FW1.3 (official) and an old samsung tv. I tried different Intel display drivers but I always got a black screen with a mouse pointer (Win10). When I put in my password (sometimes i had to try 2 or 3 times) the computer actually shows me the windows desktop. So logging in without password solves the problem for me, but I like a real solution. :-) I'd like to update the hdmi firmware, but the above mentioned link links to version 1.72. In the bin folder are 2 bin files for different nuc models. So which one I should use? One is for NUC6CAY, , one for NUC7ixBN. Please help. Thank you.

Event4101 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote Event4101 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 30 Jan 2018 at 5:26am
	I purchased an ASRock J4205-ITX in November 2016. Back then I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Update, installed the drivers that were included with the J4205-ITX, and was stuck with the HDMI black screen and flashing mouse pointer problem ever since. The only HDMI driver that would work reliably with the J4205-ITX HDMI port was the default Microsoft Basic Display Adapter driver. Unfortunately this driver was rather limited since it had a fixed resolution and no support for HDMI audio. Since, at that time, the J4205-ITX was a new board I felt bios and driver updates would soon fix the problem. Now, more than a year later, I'm still waiting. In my case, when using the Intel video driver, I would open the Windows Event Viewer and check the System log. There I would find numerous Warnings for Event Id 4101. The description for this event was "Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered." The event was recorded about every two seconds, corresponding to the mouse pointer flash rate. Reviewing the event log entries it would appear the Intel video driver would hang-up and Windows would restart the driver over and over and over. Even though you have a J3455-ITX, both boards are based on the Intel Apollo Lake architecture so I assume your problem is the same as mine. In an attempt to solve this HDMI video problem, over the past year or so I installed ASRock bios updates when they were made available (currently v1.4), installed just about every Intel HD Graphics 505 video driver update when they became available (.4494, .4771, .4815, .4849, .4901, etc), and updated the Intel HDMI firmware from 1.56 to 1.66 (according to the Kodi forum, 1.66 is the last firmware update that will work with the ASRock Apollo Lake boards). I even submitted a support request to ASRock, but other than the token email response I never received a reply. So nothing I tried helped to resolve the problem. To add insult to injury, Windows Update would keep reinstalling a malfunctioning Intel video driver replacing the working Microsoft Basic Display Adapter driver. Fortunately I have Windows 10 Pro so I was able to block Windows Update from installing the Intel video driver by using a Group Policy setting. Recently I stumbled upon the Kodi.tv web site and found a lot of insightful information in the user forum. The forum has a section titled "Hardware" and within that section there is a 118 page thread titled "Intel Apollo Lake". A significant portion of this thread is dedicated to solving HDMI problems with the ASRock Apollo Lake boards and problems with the MegaChips MCDP2800 Display Port -to- HDMI 2.0 chip on many of those boards. It is quite an interesting thread to follow if you find yourself with several hours of nothing to do. After reading most of the posts in this thread here is what I did to sort-of solve the black screen problem with my board. 1) I updated the J4205-ITX video firmware from v1.56 to 1.66. Version 1.66 is no longer available for download from the Intel web site, but I found that 1.66 was offered for download in the Kodi thread, on page 117, by member fritsch. Unfortunately, in my case, this alone did not solve my HDMI black screen problem. 2) I read in the Kodi Apollo Lake forum that the J4205-ITX DVI port was essentially a HDMI 1.4 port with audio (even though the DVI spec does not include audio). The DVI port by-passes the problematic MegaChips MCDP2800. So I went to WalMart (not promoting, it was just nearby) and purchased a DVI to HDMI adapter. I then plugged the TV HDMI cable into this adapter and tried using the J4205 DVI port. Unfortunately this still did not solve my HDMI black screen problem. 3) I used the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to create a bootable usb flash drive with the latest Windows 10 build (I did this on January 21, 2018). I completely erased a hard drive and then installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 from the usb flash drive. Once Windows was installed I allowed Windows Update to download and install whatever drivers it chose. I installed none of the ASRock J4205 drivers that were included with the board or from the ASRock web site. From what I saw, Windows Update installed these Intel drivers for my board... Intel Other Hardware SMBUS 5AD4 Intel System 3.0.0.1115 (7-23-2017) Intel Display 22.20.16.4749 (7-24-2017) So with Intel HDMI firmware version 1.66 installed, using a DVI to HDMI adapter from WalMart to connect the TV HDMI cable to the J4205 DVI port, and a fresh Windows 10 installation that did not include any ASRock supplied drivers, I now have a rather reliable HDMI signal to my TV which does include HDMI audio. It has been a just passed a week and the only time I will encountered a black screen with flashing mouse pointer is when I have powered-on the computer before I power-on the TV. The LCD TV seems to go through a start-up process and my guess is the Intel video driver is unable to detect the LCD TV during this period. If I wait for the TV to finish the start-up process and display "No Signal", and then power-up the computer, I don't experience the black screen problem or, I probably should say, that has been the case so far. With the computer powered-on, I can power the TV off and on and the picture always returns without any issues so, whatever problem there is with the J4205 and the Intel video driver, it seems to only occur during the initial detection of the HDMI TV. In closing, I can't say if just one or all three steps I followed were responsible for solving my HDMI black screen problem, but at least the problem is now manageable. It would be nice if ASRock and Intel would finally solve this problem, but I don't feel optimistic. The Apollo Lake boards are now over a year old, are susceptible to several nasty exploits (Intel Management Engine, Meltdown, Spectre), and being a throwaway society it is often cheaper for manufacturers to ignore problems and just let attrition takeover. Anyway good luck and here are a few links: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=270298&page=117 https://www.walmart.com/ip/ONN-DVI-to-HDMI-Adapter/544003242

Zzenz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12 Dec 2017 Status: Offline Points: 13	Post Options Post Reply Quote Zzenz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13 Feb 2018 at 8:40pm
	Yes my issues have become even worse and can't even get an image at all. HDMI or DVI. Contacted Asrock direct and really have had no help or support from them apart from trying a new BIOS 1.42 beta or something.. After the computer just kept repeated booting into the BIOS, I finally got a picture... For two days! Now nothing at all.... Also this is the Asrock forum right??? Why the hell has there been not one post from Asrock regarding this issue? I have never been more disgusted in a product and even more so in the non existing support. I now have to unplug ALL video cables from the TV and use a backup media player to watch anything off my plex server.

Event4101 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote Event4101 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 14 Feb 2018 at 12:43pm
	Hi Zzenz welcome to the club, although, I'm sorry that you found yourself to be a member. It has been a little more than two weeks since I was finally able to achieve some HDMI video stability using the Intel HD Graphics driver with my J4205-ITX board, which I documented rather thoroughly. I'm happy to report that the HDMI is still working provided I always make sure to power-on the TV before I power-on the computer. When I fail to follow that power-up sequence I still end-up with a black screen and flashing mouse pointer which then requires a computer reboot to resolve the problem. You didn't mention if you were using Linux or Windows with your ASRock board, but you might try performing a thorough memory test to make sure your HDMI problem isn't being aggravated by some other, possibly intermittent, hardware issue. I used Memtest86 to test the memory on my ASRock board. Memtest86 will create a standalone bootable USB drive if you have a spare USB flash drive handy. I allowed the memory test to run overnight and fortunately had no memory errors. That's just a suggestion and is certainly something simple to check. If you are using Windows, and can get it to load, Windows has a built-in memory test utility, Windows Memory Diagnostic, found from the Start menu under Windows Administration Tools. It can also be found in the Control Panel in Administrative Tools. Memtest86 performs an extensive amount of memory testing. I'm not sure how thorough the Windows memory test is by comparison. Obviously, with these embedded boards, the memory, power supply, and drive are the only parts that can be swapped out when problems arise. As you mentioned, the lack of assistance from ASRock is disappointing. It does feel like some of these Apollo Lake boards have been banished to the land of misfit boards. I've noticed a few forum moderators that will offer suggestions, but I can't say that I have found any forum members that claim to represent ASRock. https://www.memtest86.com

Zzenz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12 Dec 2017 Status: Offline Points: 13	Post Options Post Reply Quote Zzenz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 14 Feb 2018 at 8:26pm
	Thanks.. yes running windows 10. And yes the first thing I did was check the memory. TV on or off I still get nothing at all now. Such a shame.. It is a nice board and did everything I expected form it... Apart form actually be able to view it .

Stefan75 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 15 Feb 2017 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 80	Post Options Post Reply Quote Stefan75 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 15 Feb 2018 at 1:03pm
	Hi, I might have the same "problem" with the black screen / flashing mouse... But when I see that I hit ESC and enter my W10 pin... then it logs in and I can see the desktop. Edited by Stefan75 - 15 Feb 2018 at 1:04pm
	http://cellarcinema.info

Event4101 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jan 2018 Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote Event4101 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 Feb 2018 at 4:56am
	Zzenz It would seem like the HDMI on your board may have failed. From what I have read of other people having HDMI problems with these Apollo Lake boards, even the ones manufactured by Intel, they usually can get either the HDMI or DVI port working in some fashion through various combinations of updates (drivers, video firmware, BIOS). As I wrote in a previous post, the HDMI port would work with the Microsoft default video driver, it was the Intel driver that created my problem. Obviously I don't know where you purchased the board, but I assume it has gone beyond the return for a refund date. You seem like a tech savvy person, but have you tried a different HDMI cable? During my extensive reading about this problem it did appear that these boards could be picky about the quality of the HDMI cable. Some reported using a better quality HDMI cable solved the problem. I got the impression that you had used your HDMI cable with other AV equipment so was hesitant to make the suggestion since it seems unlikely that is the problem. Just curious, are you able to get a video signal from the on-board VGA port? That is, if you have access to monitor or TV with a VGA port. I never encountered a problem with the VGA port. If the VGA port is working you should be able to get into Windows Device Manager and see the video driver that is being used. If it is the Intel driver, you can switch back to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter driver to see if that will resurrect the HDMI port. At least that would tell you if the HDMI port has failed or if it is a driver issue. Of course I'm also assuming that you haven't tossed the board in the trash and moved-on with your life. :) Stefan75 I tried your approach and it didn't work for me. I powered-on the computer with the TV powered-off. Once the computer had booted I powered-on the TV and was met by the usual black screen and flashing mouse pointer. I pressed the ESC key and there was no change. I pressed Enter, Space bar, and still nothing. If you are entering a PIN then I assume you are using a Microsoft account to log-in to your computer. My Windows 10 installation doesn't use a Microsoft account, I'm using local accounts, but I doubt that would make a difference. It seems odd that if you are experiencing the HDMI driver problem that pressing the ESC key would resolve it. Just curious, once you see the black screen and flashing mouse pointer, then log-in, if you view the Windows System log do you see recent Event Id 4101 Warning entries with a description that points to a problem with the display driver igfx? One odd thing I did encounter when I was experiencing the HDMI video problem, if I logged-in to the computer using Windows Remote Desktop from my laptop, I could get the computer desktop to display on my laptop. Once I logged-out of the Remote Desktop session then the Intel video driver would start working with the TV HDMI port. Remote Desktop is only available with the Windows "Professional" version so the "Home" version doesn't have the feature. Still, Remote Desktop really wasn't a convenient solution to the problem, but I thought it was a peculiar observation that appeared to solve the problem until the computer was shutdown.