Audio over HDMI

rogerX19 wrote: I recently built a new computer to replace my old one. ASRock FM2A88M Extreme 4+ motherboard, AMD A10-7850k, 8 GB RAM, etc. The old computer was able to output both video and audio to my 46" LCD Tv. The new ASRock build only outputted video. A look in Control Panel, Sounds indicates that HDMI audio is not connected (but it IS connected)   Looked on the ASRock FAQs and found Question #Q&A 89(297) "How do I setup sound (etc.) output via HDMI.   The solution given is incorrect. If you look at the first image shown in the answer, and look at the "Digital Audio (HDMI) which is circled in red, you will see the notation "not plugged in"   This is exactly the same situation I was having, even though the HDMI cable was plugged in and also it worked just fine with my old computer.   Short Answer: install the VGA drivers   Long Answer: I don't know why this worked. When I first found the HDMI audio not working, I installed the "All-in-One" drivers from the included CD (Why do they call them All-in-One when they are not??)   As this did not fix the problem, I downloaded the latest all-in-one drivers, which also did not fix the problem.   At the same time, I was not able to activate "Aero" (which I love) in Windows 7, as the computer reported my Windows experience as a 1.0, due to graphics problems.   On a whim, I downloaded and installed the VGA drivers, and noticed during the install that "HDMI audio drivers" were also being installed.   After rebooting, my HDMI audio was enabled !  After re-running my "Windows Experience", I now have a 4.4 for graphics instead of a 1.0, and AERO is enabled!   Note to ASRock: please fix your FAQ (noted above) which is currently useless.   thanks   rogerX

Lets revisit the FAQ you referenced above, Question #Q&A 89(297) "How do I setup sound (etc.) output via HDMI.

The first item under Setup is:

1. Please install all drivers from support CD, after that please check device manager, there should be no any "!" or "?" on list.
You said you downloaded and installed "... the latest all-in-one drivers...", which I assume is the AMD all in 1 driver ver:14.502.1013 from your board's download page.

That file is provided by AMD, and while they call it "all in 1 driver", it only contains the basic chipset drivers, and INF files required for your board's A88 chipset. It does not contain any audio or video drivers, network drivers, or the SATA RAID driver for your board.

There are six other drivers listed below the AMD all-in-one driver on your boards download page, including the VGA driver you later installed that fixed your audio problem.

Back to the FAQ, which states "... install all drivers from support CD...". I'm sure there are more drivers than the AMD all-in-1 driver on the support CD, including the VGA driver you installed.

You downloaded and installed only the all-in-1 driver (at first), which is not following the directions, sorry to say.

If you had installed all the drivers from the support CD, or downloaded and installed all seven drivers on your board's download page, you would not have had the problem you experienced with the audio over your HDMI cable.

So I must say that the FAQ directions are correct as they are written.

You are currently using the AMD audio driver used by the audio capability of your A10-7850k APU processor.

Integrated graphics as found in your AMD processor, and in most current Intel processors, also have a complementary audio capability that is part of the board's chipset.

The matching audio driver for the processor's video support is normally packaged with the video driver. Intel does the same thing with their integrated graphics driver, it contains the associated audio driver which is not provided as a single download file.

I have no idea what you were using as a video driver before you installed the true video driver for the integrated graphics in your processor. Perhaps a generic Window video driver that was installed automatically?