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Topic: Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver (Read 8000 times) previous topic - next topic
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Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

I have an HDMI LG TV connected to an Onkyo receiver. A PC serving as a jukebox is also connected to the receiver by HDMI.

When the TV powers off, the HDMI audio driver on the PC crashes (Abit / Realtek).

The PC driver is the latest.

The HDMI cables have been swapped.

No problems are caused on the DVR or the Blu Ray when the TV powers off.

No problems are caused on the PC when the DVR or Blu Ray player power off.

I have seen other references to similar problems where many different brand TVs apparently crash HDMI audio and video on PCs. I have not seen any solutions.

Anyone have an idea what might cause this and how to fix it?

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #1 –
While not the same thing, I recently had problems with a USB flash drive. A number of times I “ejected” it via Windows Explorer, then disconnected it, and the OS immediately crashed.

While I don’t know if there might be another solution, having nothing but Windows Explorer open when I remove the drive prevents the crash. Possibly only one, or some other particular programs are involved, but it didn’t seem worth the effort to experiment.

What is essentially a USB flash drive, a reader for the memory card of a camera, causes no problems when I “eject” and remove it. Also, an iPod connected via USB causes no similar problems. There is just something about that particular flash drive.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #2 –
What OS, and HDMI device (video card and/or audio) are you using? Abit makes motherboards, if it has an HDMI chip integrated (with full 7.1 audio), it could be an Nvidia 8200/8300, or 9300/9400. If it is Intel, it could be a G35, G45 or the recently released Clarkdale chips (Core i3 and i5 on an H55 or H57 chipset).

Realtek makes the HDMI audio chips for ATI 4000 and 5000 series cards.

Your problem is likely an HDMI handshake issue. I use an HDMI detective, you can buy a cheaper "DVI Doctor" device from Monoprice, but that doesn't support HDCP, so if that's cool with you, any should work.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #3 –
Quote from: andy o on
What OS, and HDMI device (video card and/or audio) are you using? Abit makes motherboards, if it has an HDMI chip integrated (with full 7.1 audio), it could be an Nvidia 8200/8300, or 9300/9400. If it is Intel, it could be a G35, G45 or the recently released Clarkdale chips (Core i3 and i5 on an H55 or H57 chipset).

Realtek makes the HDMI audio chips for ATI 4000 and 5000 series cards.

Your problem is likely an HDMI handshake issue. I use an HDMI detective, you can buy a cheaper "DVI Doctor" device from Monoprice, but that doesn't support HDCP, so if that's cool with you, any should work.


Thanks Andy,

It's Win XP SP3 on an Asus M3A78-EM AMD mobo. (sorry about the ABIT comment).

I'm using the onboard motherboard HDMI audio and video which is otherwise flawless.

If I was to purchase HDMI Detective, or similar, would it tell me anything that would help me solve the issue? Or is this info only valuable to a driver writer?

Is there some kind of device  / software that monitors / filters HDMI commands that could be used? Or am I better off just waiting until Realtek fixes the problem?

Dave


Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #4 –
Now I see, the Driver Detective is more of a fixer than a detective. He will mimic your TV, making it look like it was never turned off.

Still, $100 to fix a driver issue, damn.

The DVI product would require me to purchase 2 more DVI cables, making it "not worth it".



Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #5 –
Yeah, that's what it does. I have both an HDMI Detective (Gefen) and a DVI Doctor (Monoprice) which is cheaper but doesn't have HDCP. Your 780G board doesn't have full 7.1 audio though, only SPDIF-like audio through HDMI. If you don't care about HDCP (pretty much only bluray movies use it, and even that can be circumvented -- I'm not sure that can be discussed here though), you can get a DVI Doc for about $50, and get either DVI-HDMI cables or DVI-HDMI adapters. It will pass audio just fine. But as you said, it's not the most elegant fix.

I've been using Windows 7 for a while now, and before, Vista. I left XP a long time ago and never looked back. I mostly use my PC as HTPC. Probably the drivers for XP are faulty or out of date, it's happening more often now. At the HTPC boards we're telling everyone to just upgrade to Win 7.

Did you try these drivers? They're the latest for the 780G (HD3200) chipset.

BTW, you only need one extra cable, not two. The HDMI Detective comes with its own extra cable. For the DVI Doctor, you can get very cheap short HDMI cables at monoprice.com, or even cheaper ones at Blue Jeans Cable (one foot is enough). You can also get cheap DVI-HDMI adapters at those sites.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #6 –
Try using Windows 7, it's a lot more resistant to driver crashes (recovering immediately if one occurs) than XP.
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #7 –
Thank you again, Andy and others. It's good to see I'm not the only one with this issue if there's been a product built.

For the drivers, the ATI Catalyst install fails, many others report this problem too... but I am running the same HDMI audio driver I installed direct from Realtek dated the beginning of December. I suppose I should check the HDMI video driver too... but video is still working if the screen is switched back on. Audio needs a restart.

I was leery of finding Win 7 driver support so went with XP. I will consider 7 in the future, I guess it is now well supported. Coming from the corporate world where all is still XP, I guess I have a warped sense of reality.

I was unaware of the HDCP issue but I guess the point is moot. The only video this PC does is old concert footage and web stuff. For Blu Ray I have the dedicated player. I didn't even think to research varying degrees of HDMI support, I figured it was either HDMI compliant, or not. Live and learn.

Now I've got to decide how much to spend to solve this... so far I've just been leaving the itunes visualizer on!

Thanks so much for a good explanation!]



Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #8 –
I had a laptop on Vista with the latest Catalyst drivers, HDMI seemed an after thought (often plugging in HDMI would not switch to external display), unplugging occasionally resulted in a 640x480 resolution! Switched over to Win 7 on same machine and HDMI was never a problem...

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #9 –
That's interesting... I will keep it in mind.

My previous (unfounded) confidence in ATI was put to the test today, when I read the readme for the drivers indicated above. This readme has you manually uninstalling stuff and performing other manual cleanup. After I did so, ATI Catalyst and the drivers installed, but then Catalyst Control Center would not start and the screen had a black border even though it was at 1920x1080. After going back to a restore point I installed a driver manager program instead of ever having to deal with any ATI junk again.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #10 –
I haven't bought an ATI product in several years, but I remember always having lots of problems with their drivers.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #11 –
XP in general right now is getting very poor driver support. ATI has been slowly improving though, their drivers for the 4000 series in Vista/7 are pretty much flawless at this point. There's problems with the 5000 series that hopefully will be addressed soon.

Nvidia is not much better, at least not in the HTPC space. Their HDMI audio implementation is pretty much a joke.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #12 –
I purchased HDMI Detective Plus and installed it last night. It solved my problem, and I'm $100 poorer. Thanks!

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #13 –
Good to know. It's a shame though that HDMI is such a poorly conceived standard that these solutions are even necessary.

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #14 –
One addendum for anyone following in my footsteps:

I originally installed the device on the back of my TV between the HDMI cable and the TV.

This worked great at preserving the signal to the PC when the TV was turned off.

However, a couple of days later I was still having occasional driver crashes.

The problem was that if the receiver switched the TV to another input, like Directv, then the driver would crash because the HDMI detective was no longer visible to the PC.

I had to install the HDMI detective on the cable between the PC and the receiver instead. No more crashes when the receiver switches away from the PC as the source.
 

Turning off HDMI TV crashes HDMI PC driver

Reply #15 –
Yep, that's the way it should be used, directly to the graphics card. Make sure you program it again though, cause it will save not only your display's capabilities, but also the receiver's audio capabilities.