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HDMI channel layouts get messed up

JJ_V
Beginner
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Hello,

I yesterday encountered the situation where the audio output channels in 5.1 mode through hdmi are wrong. It is the problem already described in this thread:

I was using the latest drivers (obtained from Windows update, they are later than the ones on the Intel webiste). As an attempt to fix it, I installed the latest drivers from the Intel website. This fixed it, but of course there was a reboot inbetween. I have no dump of the Intel information from the time it was wrong. When it goes wrong, it goes wrong for all applications (games, etc).

I have no idea how to reproduce it. The only thing is that I was trying to get MPC-HC to use the MPC-BE audio renderer, which uses WASAPI audio output. The reason I wanted WASAPI is that it allows the system to output the same channels as they are in the source material (ie a stereo source will result in a stereo signal, a 5.1 source in a 5.1 signal). I only used stereo sources and 5.1 sources and no program crashed or was forcefully closed. Not sure if it is connected, but I could not get it to work. Using the WASAPI output, the system output a signal that was incompatible with my receiver, even though the limitations of my system were set correctly. But that may be a different problem which I need to investigate further. This post is about the channel layout.

Is there already solution to prevent the hdmi channels from getting messed up? (e.g. is it connected to using WASAPI?) Rebooting is not always an option (e.g. if it happens while the system is recording TV programs, you cannot just reboot). I have a Intel 4790K on an Asus Z97-A mainboard.

Best regards,

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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Hello @V_J,

Could you please let us know the driver version you are running? Please go to Device Manger> Display adapters> Intel(R) HD Graphics right click on Properties and then go to Driver, you will be able to see the version installed.

What operating system are you using?

Do you remember the Intel® HD Graphics version that it worked for you?

Are you able to set 5.1? Or, it does not work at all?

What do you mean by "the audio output channels in 5.1 mode through hdmi are wrong."? Do you mean there is no sound at all? Please elaborate.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
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Dear Amy,

Thank you for the reply. I will try to elaborate on everything.

1. Problem.

First let me describe the problem better. In the Windows Control panel, I have the Intel Display Audio device configured as default device. It is configured as a 5.1 surround. When clicking the speakers on the figure next to the choice for speaker configuration, the sound is correct: clicking the left speaker results in a sound coming from the left speaker, etc.. Occasionally things go wrong. When I then check in this control panel, it happens that the outputs are not correctly mapped: I click the center speaker, and the sound comes out of the surround right speaker. Other channels are also outputting on the wrong speaker and often some are not outputting at all (but that might be if the subwoofer channel is outputted to a normal speaker and vice versa). When this happens, this wrong mapping of the speakers occurs in ALL programs. A reboot seems to fix it for some time, but after a while the problem resurfaces.

2. Circumstances / reproducability.

I have not identified under which circumstances the problem starts. Yesterday, it started quite quickly on a freshly booted system. On other occasions it can go for a longer time without the problem surfacing. It does happen even though I have not used programs that use the WASAPI interface, I have not yet found a connection with resuming from standby (but resume from standby is not enough to solve the problem when it occurs), it needs a real reboot but it does not have to be a cold restart.

3. Since which version?

I don't know. The change is sometimes quite subtle and one really has to be watching a movie or playing a game for it be noticable and then one has to verify if it is indeed this problem. I first realized what was happening just before starting this thread. Now that I identified the problem, I'm quite sure it happened earlier, but I cannot say which driver version I was using earlier. When I identified the problem, I was using the latest drivers that got installed through Windows Update (I did not write down the version number). In an attempt to fix the problem, I installed the latest driver from the Intel website, but the problem also appears with this version.

The problem to me appears to be the same as the one mentioned in this thread:

https://communities.intel.com/thread/45733 https://communities.intel.com/thread/45733

4. Hardware / drivers

Mainboard: Asus Z97-A Rev 1.xx; bios version 2801 (11/11/2015)

Information from Intel HD Graphics Control Panel

Report Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Report Time [hh:mm:ss]: 10:36:14 AM

Driver Version: 20.19.15.4531

Operating System: Windows* 10 Pro (10.0.14393)

Default Language: English (United States)

Physical Memory: 7876 MB

Vendor ID: 8086

Device ID: 0412

Device Revision: 06

Video BIOS: 1029.0

Current Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz

Processor Speed: 4000 MHz

Processor Graphics in Use: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600

Shader Version: 5.0

OpenGL* Version: 4.3

OpenCL* Version: 1.2

* Microsoft DirectX* *

Runtime Version: 12.0

Hardware-Supported Version: 11.1

I hope this clarifies better the situation. 🙂

Best regards,

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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Thank you for the explanation.

Let's try uninstalling the current driver version with these steps;

  1. Open the Device Manager using the steps provided for your operating system:
  2. Expand the Display Adapters section.
  3. Find the Intel Graphics Driver.
  4. Right click Intel Graphics Driver and select Uninstall.
  5. Select the check box Delete the driver software for this device.
  6. Reboot the computer after uninstall process has finished.

For testing purposes, once this is done Windows® 10 will install the Basic driver. Then try setting the surround sound as you normally do, and let me know what happens. If the issue persists, install the following version; https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26229/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-15-40-4th-Gen-?product=81496 Download Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 10 [15.40][4th Gen] with this method http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/graphics-drivers/000005629.html Manually Install an Intel® Graphics Driver in Windows® 10 and Windows..... Finally, you can try with the ASUS driver, which you can find here https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97A/HelpDesk_Download/ Z97-A | Motherboards | ASUS Global. Another suggestion is to try a different HDMI cable.

Please try each scenario and let me know how it goes.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
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Dear Amy,

I uninstalled the driver (and checked the delete option). After reboot, the system first ran in lower resolution, but then updated its driver automatically. It is the same version of driver as the one I uninstalled and even has the Intel HD Graphics control panel. The install was fast enough, so I do not think it downloaded this driver but rather had it cached somewhere.

Is this ok, or should I try other things to get the system to fall back to another driver version?

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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That should be ok, the thing here is try different drivers and see the outcome.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

The thing is... I'm not sure it is using a different driver now... But we'll see how it goes.

It sometimes takes a while for the problem to start so it may be quite a few days before I can see if it occurs again or not. But I will post here when it does, and then continue with the next steps you sent earlier.

FWIW, I will also connect more audio cables: I can connect both analog out and optical out from the mainboard to the amplifier. If/When the problem occurs, this will allow me to check whether the Intel Audio Device is the only device where the channels are wrong, or if the other output devices also show the same issue.

Thanks,

Jörg

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idata
Employee
2,013 Views

Keep me posted, I am interested in your results.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

Dear Amy,

The problem occurred again, but slightly different. During playback of a movie, the channel layout suddenly went wrong again. Most noticeable was the fact that the center channel was output via the left surround speaker. As the movie was a 5.1 source, suddenly all voices coming from the left was easy to notice. The surround right speaker went totally silent (I suspect one explanation is it may have swapped with the subwoofer, but am not sure about that).

I closed and reopened the mediaplayer, but the problem persisted. In Windows control panel, the test where you can click on the loudspeakers did not work: no sound was output on any channel. After a couple of tries however (closing/reopening the control panel) it suddenly gave sound halfway through one of the test sounds and after that all channels played back and were mapped correctly. Subsequently playing the movie file also was fine: it played with the correct audio channels.

Media playback software:

MPC-HC 64bit version 1.7.10

lav video decoder set to use Intel QuickSync

video renderer: madVR 0.91.4

audio renderer: Internal Audio Renderer (from MPC-HC, uses Wasapi)

audio device: Default device

movie file: .ts file with two audio streams (mpeg stereo stream and ac-3 5.1 stream) and one subtitle stream, playback using 5.1 channel stream and displaying the subtitle stream.

I had not yet connected the other cables (have to move some furniture to get to the back of pc and amplifier :-)) so I could not verify if other output devices behaved the same.

I will try first to uninstall the current driver, perhaps it will fall back to the basic driver this time, allowing me to test with that one. If not, I will install the Intel driver manually as you asked in a previous post and try with that one.

Best regards,

Jörg

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

Small update: I uninstalled the drivers, again with the delete option. I not only uninstalled the Intel HD graphics driver (from Display Adapters) but also Intel Display Audio (from Sound, video and game controllers). Windows 10 automatically installed the following versions:

Display driver: Intel Cooperation, 29/09/2016, 20.19.15.4531

Display audio driver: Intel Cooperation, 10/05/2016, 6.16.03197

FWIW, It also installed the Intel HD Control panel.

Let's see how this goes now... 🙂

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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Yes please, keep me posted.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

Still issues...

Yesterday, I could not get audio through the Intel Display Audio device using MPC-HC and the internal audio renderer (which uses Wasapi). It was the only program that gave issues, but I did not try another program that uses wasapi. I will reinstall MPC-HC and double check more, before trying the intel driver you suggest.

Jörg

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idata
Employee
2,013 Views

Let me know how that goes.

Is there any chance you can test a different tool? Perhaps try with VLC Media Player or Winamp.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

Hello,

It seems there are two problems... The one of not having sound (or sometimes video playback barely manages 1 frame per second or even freezes) seems to be related to bit streaming audio to the amplifier. I don't know why some bitstreaming some files causes issues, the amplifier (Marantz SR6001) supports the formats (e.g. DTS)... When bitstreaming is deselected (and the computer sends a PCM signal), audio works in the cases where audio playback was missing.

I had the problem of wrongly mapped channels again today, now when playing a game. The subwoofer was mapped to the surround left speaker, one of the front channels went to the surround right and the other front channel went to the subwoofer.

I installed the latest Intel Driver version from the zip-file (both for the display device and the audio device) and rebooted. The problem occured also after that. The only program I ran was the game. The layout of the channels was also wrong in the Windows Control panel. A different hdmi cable makes no difference; I already have an optical cable connected, and via that one the channel layout appears fine.

I'm really at a loss here... I don't know what else to try. I know I can use the optical cable as an alternative, but hdmi makes things easier and should be better.

Any suggestions?

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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@V_J, let me review your case, as soon as I have more information I will update the thread.

 

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,013 Views

Thank you for reviewing the case.

I will reinstall the entire Windows installation, to rule out any issues with some corrupt registry, wrong versions, build-upgrade related issues or whatever. But I'll only be able to do this come January.

In the mean time: Happy holidays 🙂

Jörg

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idata
Employee
2,013 Views

Before trying that don't forget to install the driver provided by ASUS, see here for the files; https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97A/HelpDesk_Download/ Z97-A | Motherboards | ASUS Global. And, if possible try a different HDMI cable.

Happy holidays.

Regards,

Amy.

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idata
Employee
2,012 Views

@V_J, don't forget to keep me posted. I am keeping an eye on your thread.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
2,012 Views

It was a bit difficult to check things during the holiday season...

I'm beginning to think it is related to the encoding of the sound that is played back. I played back several movies in the last week without issues, and just one that caused the problem of the channel layouts getting remapped wrong. But even that one issue solved itself when pausing/unpausing the movie. As I use the same software with the same configuration, the only difference I see between them is the encoding of the audio signal. The different encodings are probably differently handled by the playback software, so it may also mean there is something in the playback chain that is causing the issue rather than the audio driver itself.

I still intend to reinstall the system to get a clean installation, but am not sure yet when I would manage that.

Jörg

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idata
Employee
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Sure I understand, let me know you as soon as you have that ready.

Regards,

Amy.

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JJ_V
Beginner
1,774 Views

Hello Amy,

Sorry for the late reply, I wanted to be sure before checking back on this topic. The system has been reinstalled and I have not really observed the behaviour anymore. I should add that I also discovered some other issues in the whole audio decoding chain (problems with bit-streaming, decoding to multiple channels where I did not expect it, ...) so I configured things differently and may have a configuration now that could obfuscate the problem. But it does seem the mixed up channels problem did not occur anymore, so it more and more looks like it was some weird glitch...

Thanks,

Jörg

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