Help trouble shooting audio issue

[craigap]

On nearly a daily basis now I am having an audio issue in which the center speaker sound disappears when playing a recording. I select a show to watch (usually a cartoon for my daughter to watch while I do other things) and the music plays and all other background sounds play but the actual dialog (center channel on my 5.1 system) cannot be heard. The fastest way I have figured out to resolve this issue is by unplugging the HDMI cable from the back of the computer and just plugging it back in again. I don't have stop and restart the recording; I just have to unplug and plug back in.

My system is setup as such: HDMI from my PC to AVR then HDMI to my TV. I use the AC3 filter built into SageTV with the default settings.

What can I do to help find out where the problem is?

[Fuzzy]

If you have AC3 filter set at the default settings, than it is likely decoding the AC3 and outputting multichannel sound to the AVR. This works fine in most cases, but windows will be able to 'mess' with this before it goes out, and windows will mix the sound down again to the number of speakers that are configured in windows audio control panel (Playback Devices -> Configure). This is set 'automatically' by the HDMI EDI information, which can sometimes get screwed up, especially with devices being powered on and off. A workaround I've found for this is to use ReClock. It has an option that will set the windows speaker count to be the same as the audio configuration that is being played. So, if the media you are watching is Stereo, it will set windows to output Stereo sound, and that is what the receiver will receive. If the media you are watching is 5.1, it will set windows to output 5.1, and that is what the receiver will receive. Other problems can arise if these do not match. For instance, if windows is set to output 5.1 sound, and stereo (2.0) sound is being played back, then what the receiver receives is 5.1 sound with all but the front left and front right speakers silent. This prevents the receiver from doing any built-in upmixing that it may be configured for.

[craigap]

I tried reclock and about every combination of settings I thought relavant, but I still have the intermittent issue. I'm also starting to have issues where my screen goes black for a few seconds during playback. I wondering if my motherboard and/or processor is going to hell. It's a AMD A85X chipset with A10 processor HD7660D graphics I think. I might just get a new motherboard/CPU/Graphics combo.

Of possible interest to note: When I try to configure Windows sound for 5.1 it has me run a test. This test sends a tone to all 6 speakers, but the only two speakers that play sound are the front L/R. Center, surround L/R and Sub don't play a sound. However, all the speakers play sound appropriately (when my original issue isn't present of course) when playing 5.1 sound from video sources.

[MattHelm]

Which audio drivers (device) are you using? I have something like that setup, and never had issues like that.

[Skirge01]

Is everything up to date? Windows, mobo, audio, video drivers? Latest AC3filter? I'd be focusing on the Windows speaker issue you mentioned. That's almost definitely a sign that there's an issue in Windows itself.

[craigap]

I had 3 audio devices under my device manager.
1. AMD High Definition Audio Driver 7.12.0.7708 5/11/2012 by AMD
2. High Definition Audio Device 6.1.7601.17514 11/19/2010 by Microsoft
3. Some kind of Playon Audio Device-I just uninstalled Playon and deleted this devices driver since I don't use Playon anymore.

I downloaded AMD's Auto detect utility and it downloaded the latest drivers for my system. I had to uncheck a bunch of garbage it wanted to install but obviously I left the Audio driver install. It updated to 7.12.0.7721 dated 4/9/2015.

I also decided to disable #2 above. I assume it is for the audio connections on the motherboard.

After doing all of the above my 6 speakers now play sound during the test under the properties settings for the audio device. I'm not sure which thing I did fixed the issue since I did them all at once before testing, but whatever.

We will see if my issue returns or not.

Thanks for the help thus far.

[KryptoNyte]

If the issue returns, maybe try a different HDMI cable?