Intel Clarkdale and H55 audio problems

[idata]

I just built another HTPC based on the Intel 661 processor. My specs are as follows:

Intel 661 Clarkdale CPU

GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX

OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

2TB Hitachi HD

LG Bluray Drive

Windows 7 x64

My connections are as follows:

Motherboard > HDMI > Denon 4310ci > HDMI > 65" Panasonic HT-65PZ850U

When I install a vanilla copy of Win7 with no other software or drivers the audio works fine. I hear the Win7 startup sound. I get audio in all of my ripped DVDs, etc. I see the correct speaker layout on my Denon LCD display.

As soon as I install the Intel HD Graphics drivers, the audio stops working. I can see the speaker displayed correctly on my Denon. I can see that the computer is making sound through the volume control panel but I get no audio through the speakers. If I go through the generic Win7 speaker config and swith audio profiles from Stereo to Surround (or anything else), the audio starts working again. But once I switch audio sources, ie, Media Player, Media Center, TV, etc...the audio stops working until I switch the speaker config again.

Everything that is recorded has audio but the playback usually requires that I "jiggle" the speaker config to actually hear audio out of my system.

Sometimes I can get the audio to play by switching between an analog channel and a HD channel.

As a side note, bitstreaming with Arcsoft works flawlessly (with the 170 beta build). My Denon decodes DD TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

As another side note, my old HTPC was connected to the same system but was i7 based with a Xonar 1.3slim audio card. I had zero problems with this setup.

I've setup Win7 from scratch a number of times to isolate the issue to the graphics driver. Everything works fine until I install the Intel driver. I've also tried 3 different versions of the driver to no avail.

As you can imagine, this renders this HTPC pretty useless.

Anyone have any ideas or experiencing the same problems?

Update:

I just installed Win7 x86 and have the same problems. So it doesn't look like it's a Windows x64 issue either.

[idata]

So I have isolated the issue to the audio driver called "Intel Display Audio". I extracted and separated the graphics and audio driver out of the original download from Intel's site. I install the graphics driver and in the control panel I see "High Definition Audio Device" listed twice in the Sound category.With just the graphics installed, the system audio works perfectly. I can switch between sources and the audio always works but when I try to play my blurays, it DOES NOT use the passthrough. I can it back in DTS or DD mode (standard 5.1). When I try to use the HDMI passthrough I get no audio.So then I tried updating one of the "HD Audio Device" listed in the control panel. When I do that, the system audio stops working when I switch between sources but the HDMI passthrough for my Blurays DOES work.My gut is telling me that this is a problem with the PAP/HDCP handshake. Since the audio and the graphics work and are so tightly integrated, I am going out on a limb and RMA'd my gigabyte board and reordered an ASUS board. Hopefully this will solve my problem and I will have all the system sounds working as well as the passthrough.As a side note, my old HTPC setup would play audio depending on how I had my system speaker config. For example, if I recorded a HD channel that was broadcast in 5.1 but had my speaker config setup to playback audio in 2 channel stereo, it just would. This made it easy to switch audio from my main 7.1 room to my bedroom that only has 2 speakers. But now, the source audio "overrides" whatever I have the system setup as. So this weekend I was trying to watch the Olympics in my bedroom but since it was recorded in 5.1, the voice channel was being piped to my center channel, which I don't have in my bedroom. This is rather annoying but I didn't have this problem on my other system with the Xonar.

[idata]

Do you resolve the issue? I have got the same problems (I cannot get the sound from the HDMI to my LCD TV in case if Intel driver is installed but all are working well without this driver but with the pure video resolution) and cannot find out the solution.

Anyone help would be very appreciated.

[idata]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have the same issue on an H77 board with an Ivy Bridge i3. Except I noticed that I am getting sound, it's just very quiet.

If I leave things with the default Microsoft driver, audio works but I lose the HD audio bitstreaming. If I install the Intel driver, I get HD audio bitstreaming but get super quiet PCM audio.

My motherboard-supplied drivers won't install because the default Windows 8 ones are newer.

[FGonz6]

Hello spivonious,

Would you please tell me if you are losing audio through the HDMI connection or from the built in Audio controller on your motherboard?

Regards,

[idata]

Hi Freddy,

I'm using the HDMI connection.

My setup is PC->Denon AVR-1610->Panasonic TC-P50S2, all HDMI.

Scott

[FGonz6]

Hello spivonious,

What happens if you try testing an HDMI TV directly connected to the motherboard HDMI port? Do you get Audio through the TV?

In case that you have a 3rd party manufacturer board we would suggest you to contact them for further assistance.

Regards,