Sound over HDMI sounds echo-ey

[RLoas]

I just went and purchased a new PC to use as a HTPC to replace an aging laptop that's served me quite well. I went and purchased a Core i3 4130 CPU and an ASRock Z87M Pro4 motherboard. The first hurdle I hit was the fact the included Intel gfx driver wouldn't install, got that "computer does not meet minimum requirements" error, tried zip/exe/detection from website/windows update/forcing/BIOS update/etc Could NOT get it installed. After much googling I found that a BETA driver works, finally!

So once I get the machine all setup, I hook it up to my TV through a Pioneer receiver (which has worked fine in the past with the laptop) but upon connecting it and telling the PC it's a 5.1 setup, the sound is incredibly echo-ey and the subwoofer is really warbly and echo-ey as well.

If I switch it to 2ch stereo, the audio appears to be fine but when going to 5.1, it's a mess. The on board audio chip is Realtek HDA and I know on my old laptop (which had onboard Radeon) when hooking it up to HDMI audio, I was still able to adjust the effects/config via the realtek HDA panel but this isn't the case with this Intel product.

Can someone please help me figure this out? I thought this was going to be relatively straight forward, something I should have completed hours ago but the fact that I can't install the latest driver for Windows 7 x64 (yes I made absolutely sure I got the right drivers for the right OS) and now can't get the right audio feed is driving me nuts. I was hoping to build a low-power PC but it looks like I may have to spend even more money to get a discrete graphics card given the issues I have encountered not only with the driver (which seems to still effect so many people) but now with the audio.

Thanks.

Russell

[RLoas]

Just to confirm, audio is still echo-ey when running in stereo through receiver AND when directly connected the tv.

I really don't want to have to get another graphics card to fulfill this simple function, is it the beta drivers I'm using? Is someone from Intel able to identify WHY their drivers won't install for most users?

[DArce]

Please post the dxdiag report from your system and test using only a direct connection between the PC and the TV (no AV receiver in between).

You may also send some screenshot of what you see in Windows* sound properties to see what is the default playback device and also what is seen in the Sound controllers category of the Device Manager. (Please post them here, not through a third party site)