WMC7 No Audio, Everything Else Works

[jmassaro87]

Hello All,

This is my first post here, but I have been browsing this community for almost 2 years. Very happy to be a part it.

My issue started about 2 weeks ago. I have a Hauppage 2250 with an antenna on the roof. This is connected to my Tv in the living room. I have an XBOX360 in my bedroom as the extender. From my extender everything is fine. But from the computer in the living room, I have no sound whatsoever from WMC. No welcome sounds, no SFX, no live tv sound, no sound for recordings. But, live tv and recordings work fine in WinTV7, and netflix, and MediaBrowser through WMC work fine as well. I know its not an audio issue from the computer to the tv becasue everything works with the exception of WMC. I need some help here, i have been scouring the net trying to find a solution and i have tried everything. Anything you guys got, will be helpful. Thanks in advance.

[richard1980]

What physical connections are you using, how is audio configured in WMC, and how is audio configured in Windows? Additionally, are you using any 3rd-part codecs of any kind?

[jmassaro87]

What physical connections are you using, how is audio configured in WMC, and how is audio configured in Windows? Additionally, are you using any 3rd-part codecs of any kind?

Hdmi from gpu to TV. Toslink from TV to sound system. No 3rd party audio codecs. Sound is setup as 2 speakers in wmc, I have a Bose cine mate 2.1 system. In windows it is set as stereo. The strangest part is the audio works everywhere but wmc.

[mdavej]

In windows sound settings - advanced, uncheck exclusive mode. Also in WMC, make sure sound is set to Main, not SAP.

[newfiend]

The Audio afaik.. travels from your PC through the HDMI cable to the TV then out of the TV over your optical cable to the sound system.
When you open Sound in Control Panel the audio output should be the HDMI cable (I believe) check to make sure that's selected as audio output.
Are you using a GFX Card or Motherboard HDMI output? and if so what brand of GFX card (make and model)? or Motherboard / CPU (Make and Model)?
Check that audio is correctly configured in Tasks/Settings > General > Windows Media Center Setup > Setup Your Speakers.
Check the TV settings for audio output (Optical in your case) so that audio is traveling to the sound system..

If you have checked all that I would investigate drivers for audio.. either Video Card Drivers or Mainboard drivers for onboard HDMI (try removal and reinstallation or updating them in case the audio driver is corrupt.)

Have you installed any new hardware or drivers lately in the PC or updated it's BIOS?
newfiend~

[jmassaro87]

In windows sound settings - advanced, uncheck exclusive mode. Also in WMC, make sure sound is set to Main, not SAP.

I had tried both of those during my quest to figure it out
I finally got it to work. I ran the fixit in this kb http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... dia-Center
Once I ran that, it finally was at the point where the Wmc volume was down. All other times it was full volume. Turned it up and boom. Weirdest thing I've even seen. I literally tried everything. I work in IT and figured it was going to be easy, which it was once I found the fix it.

[jmassaro87]

The Audio afaik.. travels from your PC through the HDMI cable to the TV then out of the TV over your optical cable to the sound system.
When you open Sound in Control Panel the audio output should be the HDMI cable (I believe) check to make sure that's selected as audio output.
Are you using a GFX Card or Motherboard HDMI output? and if so what brand of GFX card (make and model)? or Motherboard / CPU (Make and Model)?
Check that audio is correctly configured in Tasks/Settings > General > Windows Media Center Setup > Setup Your Speakers.
Check the TV settings for audio output (Optical in your case) so that audio is traveling to the sound system..

If you have checked all that I would investigate drivers for audio.. either Video Card Drivers or Mainboard drivers for onboard HDMI (try removal and reinstallation or updating them in case the audio driver is corrupt.)

Have you installed any new hardware or drivers lately in the PC or updated it's BIOS?
newfiend~

Thanks newfiend. Definitely checked all that. And all sound from computer worked, with the exception of things coming from wmc

[richard1980]

Hdmi from gpu to TV. Toslink from TV to sound system.

That's probably the problem. Only a handful of TVs allow this type of connection with encoded audio, and I bet yours isn't one of them. By disabling exclusive mode, you turned off bitstreaming, so WMC sound appears to the TV as PCM. If you want to re-enable bitstreaming, you'll need to connect your HTPC directly to the AVR, with your TV connected either directly to the HTPC or directly to the AVR.

[jmassaro87]

Hdmi from gpu to TV. Toslink from TV to sound system.

That's probably the problem. Only a handful of TVs allow this type of connection with encoded audio, and I bet yours isn't one of them. By disabling exclusive mode, you turned off bitstreaming, so WMC sound appears to the TV as PCM. If you want to re-enable bitstreaming, you'll need to connect your HTPC directly to the AVR, with your TV connected either directly to the HTPC or directly to the AVR.

The fixit ended up getting it done. But it has been working for 2 years and just all of the sudden stopped working with zero changes to anything.