*Solved* broken audio (was: Radeon cards without HDMI?)

[ED-057]

My question: what generation of Radeon GPUs got HDMI with audio support? And more importantly, which ones did NOT have this?

My old GeForce 7600 is dying. Random freezes, graphical glitches, and whatnot.

I got a new(er) video card which suited my interests (cheap, low power consumption, good enough performance for older games) and that is a Radeon HD 5500/6500. Because this card has an HDMI port (which I don't need, since I have nothing with HDMI anyway) it includes an Audio Device which is detected and installed by Windows. I'm pretty sure that this is related to the fact that, when I put the card in, I then have no sound.

I already wasted hours trying to get the sound back. Juggled drivers. Tried to monkey with stuff in the registry. Tried to find a way to disable the audio feature by flashing the video card BIOS. Tried an old SoundBlaster Live PCI card. No matter what, I cannot get sound with this video card installed. Sadly, I need a different video card.

[CkRtech]

I don't think you need to change your video card just because it has sound capabilities. Which Windows are you using? Are you using on-board sound? It should just be a matter of setting your default sound device in the sound control panel's Playback tab. That same tab will let you right-click the digital display audio entries if you want and disable them.

If you mouse over the sound mixer in the system tray, does it say the proper device name for your intended sound output?

[Ed Oscuro]

Flashing the BIOS is not likely going to help at all, like CkrTech says. Glitches can sometimes be caused by bad drivers (including old and unsupported ones, even if properly installed) or a bad Windows installation. Sound Blaster drivers aren't bulletproof either; compatibility of onboard audio on motherboards is exceptional and quality is actually pretty good. I'd accept your first guess, that the video card is starting to fail; if so I don't see how flashing the BIOS and messing about in the registry would be helpful. The same would be true if it's a pure driver / Windows installation issue.

Audio is part of the HDMI spec, and HDMI output isn't a problem. I've also been running cards with HDMI that I don't use for years, and I just select a different audio device. Some video card drivers will let you select the HDMI audio driver separately from other components, but I wouldn't avoid a card just because it has HDMI audio.

I'd stay away from the older Radeon cards; cards from at least the 5000 series are no longer supported and the drivers that are there are pretty bad. If your goal is to drop in a card and use it for years without any upgrades, I'd look at the cheapest nVidia cards out there - some are passively cooled and nVidia seems to support cards with drivers for a year longer than AMD does.

You could probably replace all this stuff at one go with a recent cheap motherboard and an AMD or Intel CPU with integrated graphics, and driver support would be less of an issue (especially on the Intel side). That will also free you from buying something specifically for an outdated motherboard or Windows which may also end up failing.

[TheRac25]

couldnt you just disable the amd high def audio device in windows device manager? thats what i did and it no longer shows up anywhere else in windows

[ED-057]

I put in a Quadro NVS 290 for the time being. However the sound did not come back. There was absolutely no hint as to why. All I know is that the SYSAUDIO service refused to start (same with SWMIDI for that matter). I even tried (again) restoring the entire WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG directory from a recent backup and that didn't fix it. Had no choice but to reinstall the OS. After getting that up and running and creating a new backup, I tried the Radeon card again. This time I didn't even attempt to install drivers for the ATI/AMD audio device, just disabled it. It seems to be working now.

[ED-057]

note for posterity:

the cause of this problem (inexplicably broken audio) is that Windows likes to replace the 2008/04/14 version of WDMAUD.DRV installed by the Realtek audio drivers with an older version