Call Me Confused, Do I Need a New Receiver?

[exospire]

Hey all, I'm seeking help to a very strange problem.

I've had my HTPC- Intel i7 860, Asus P7P55D, 8GB DDR3, Crucial 256GB M4, Win7, Radeon HD5770 HDMI -> Onkyo TX-SR707 -> Samsung 720p LCD working perfectly for years, never ever had a problem.

I just bought a Sapphire Radeon HD7850 for summertime gaming because I plan on getting a 55" 1080p LED soon. I installed it a couple nights ago, ran 3D Mark 2011, scored great, then played some YouTube videos because friends were over...

and I discovered that in EVERY video I played, the audio would skip, or cut out/drop out for a second (and the receiver would show no audio signal) and then the sound would come back on just like that. Video is not affected.

At first I thought it might have been the Flash hardware acceleration, so I unchecked that. Still cut out. Then I tried a HTML5 video, still cut out. Then I looped music on iTunes, still cut out for a second, about every 2-5 mins. Then I tried Catalyst 12.3, 12.4, 12.5 beta, and 12.6 beta. Still randomly dropped signal for a second in anything I played.

Then I formatted, still same problem. Then I put my HD5770 back in, and viola, everything played perfectly.

Hmmmm, so it is a faulty 7850??? I then put the 7850 in my office comp (Intel E6600, Gigabyte P35-DSL3, 4GB DDR2), and the audio still skipped in everything I played. I put my HD5770 in this computer, and viola, everything plays fine.

---So it has to be the 7850 right??? I then connected my 7850 HDMI directly to my Samsung LCD INSTEAD of my Onkyo. NO audio drops at all!!!!!!!---

So is it my receiver or the 7850? I don't want to get a new 7850 only to discover my Onkyo 707 still has the same issue, and I'm hesitant to get a new receiver (although I want to get one that supports 3D for my soon to be new 1080p TV) only to find out that the new one also exhibits the same problem.

What should I do?

 

[j_garcia]

Have you updated the firmware on the 707? Just for the heck of it, try a different HDMI cable. It definitely sounds like an HDMI handshake issue, and most likely it is at the receiver, but the problem is between receiver and source.

 

[Grador]

It sounds like it very well could be a video card driver issue to me. If it were a handshake issue the video WOULD drop out, as the receiver would be ignoring all input from HDMI. Make sure all your drivers are up to date.

 

[exospire]

Hey, forgot to mention that I did try a new HDMI 1.4 cable I got from monoprice, didn't help.

According to Onkyo, there are no firmware updates for the TX-SR707 model.

I've tried 4 different video card drivers, but I might try a real old one to see if that does anything different.

I'm just not sure why it works 95% of the time. When watching Hulu/HBO Go, I have to rewind everytime it cuts out because I miss the dialogue. Just can't figure out what would be causing it to lose signal.

I've emailed Onkyo, AMD, and Sapphire, and posted in about 10 forums lol.

If only I had a spare 7850 or Onkyo TX-SR707.

 

[Grador]

Do the dropouts happen just when watching flash based videos? If so I had a similar problem with a stupid solution that makes no sense. I'm not sure where the equivalent settings are for ATI, but in nVidia drivers there's a setting for if the video is full screen or windowed. I have no clue what this setting changes, never noticed a difference, but if it was set to "auto" while playing any flash video full screen i'd have video cuttouts. Setting it to either fullscreen or windowed solved the problem.

 

[exospire]

Happens on all media

 

[soljarag]

this happend on my laptop hdmi out... here is how i fixed it... dunno if its the same issue..

right click the sound icon on the bottom (by the clock) and select "Playback Devices"

then double click the HDMI device in the playback tab

then go to the advanced tab

and make sure "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" is NOT CHECKED.

then restart the computer

 

[Grador]

this happend on my laptop hdmi out... here is how i fixed it... dunno if its the same issue..

right click the sound icon on the bottom (by the clock) and select "Playback Devices"

then double click the HDMI device in the playback tab

then go to the advanced tab

and make sure "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" is NOT CHECKED.

then restart the computer

This is excellent advice, try this. There are a few unfortunate sideeffects of this, but they can all be worked around and I'll explain them if it solves the problem.

 

[exospire]

Thanks for the suggestion, but the problem still persists :\

 

[M Code]

Hey all, I'm seeking help to a very strange problem.

I've had my HTPC- Intel i7 860, Asus P7P55D, 8GB DDR3, Crucial 256GB M4, Win7, Radeon HD5770 HDMI -> Onkyo TX-SR707 -> Samsung 720p LCD working perfectly for years, never ever had a problem.

I just bought a Sapphire Radeon HD7850 for summertime gaming because I plan on getting a 55" 1080p LED soon. I installed it a couple nights ago, ran 3D Mark 2011, scored great, then played some YouTube videos because friends were over...

and I discovered that in EVERY video I played, the audio would skip, or cut out/drop out for a second (and the receiver would show no audio signal) and then the sound would come back on just like that. Video is not affected.

At first I thought it might have been the Flash hardware acceleration, so I unchecked that. Still cut out. Then I tried a HTML5 video, still cut out. Then I looped music on iTunes, still cut out for a second, about every 2-5 mins. Then I tried Catalyst 12.3, 12.4, 12.5 beta, and 12.6 beta. Still randomly dropped signal for a second in anything I played.

Then I formatted, still same problem. Then I put my HD5770 back in, and viola, everything played perfectly.

Hmmmm, so it is a faulty 7850??? I then put the 7850 in my office comp (Intel E6600, Gigabyte P35-DSL3, 4GB DDR2), and the audio still skipped in everything I played. I put my HD5770 in this computer, and viola, everything plays fine.

---So it has to be the 7850 right??? I then connected my 7850 HDMI directly to my Samsung LCD INSTEAD of my Onkyo. NO audio drops at all!!!!!!!---

So is it my receiver or the 7850? I don't want to get a new 7850 only to discover my Onkyo 707 still has the same issue, and I'm hesitant to get a new receiver (although I want to get one that supports 3D for my soon to be new 1080p TV) only to find out that the new one also exhibits the same problem.

What should I do?

I checked the Intel site Digital Content Protection and failed to find HDMI certification for the mentioned board. Without HDMI certification, the interoperability with AVRs w/HDMI repeaters is hit or miss...
It may work fine straight into an HD display but not through an AVR via HDMI. They need to provide an updated S/W or else return the board.

It is most unfortunate that HDMI certification is not mandatory, if it was these types of problems would be minimized..


Just my $0.02...

 

[exospire]

Replacement card shows same problems. Just ordered a Denon 2312. Now I have a reason to upgrade my 40" 720p LCD to a 55" 1080p 3D

 

[exospire]

The problem persists with the Denon 2312 in both computers. The HD5770 works fine. So...

 

[exospire]

Only if I select a Dynamic Volume setting does the problem appear on the Denon. If it starts cutting out, and turn off/on the receiver, then it plays fine until I change the Dynamic Volume settings again. Wtf?