Hello Guys;

I'm hoping someone can help me out:
first off, here are the specs of my system:
CPU:    AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
Mem:    6GB

Mobo:   TA790GX XE
VGA:    on-board ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics
Capture Cards:  2x ATI Theater Pro 650
Windows 7 Base Score: 3.9 (should be 5.9 but the graphics brought it down)

I'm using this machine as an HTPC in my living room. It's connected to my 52" Sony HDTV.
The motherboard has onboard audio/video with an HDMI port so I can connect it right in.

Problem is:
The onboard graphics SUCK! So bad that it's causing some rendering issues for HD content. I have an NVidia 8600GTS card I'd love to use BUT I can't plug in the audio and video at the same time. This is because my TV doesn't allow me to manually choose the Audio input. I have 3 HDMI inputs. One of them has Red/White RCA jacks with it. When I just plug my ipod into it, I can get audio out. But when I plug an HDMI in, the TV automatically changes to HDMI audio. Even if there is no sound through the HDMI, it won't allow the RCA audio to come through.
Possible solution:
My Geforce 8600GTS looks like it's got a SPDIFin on it. SO theoretically I should be able to connect the on-board audios SPDIFout into that and hopefully be able to use an audio enabled DVI to HDMI adapter so I can plug the HDMI to the TV and get both audio/video.
My Question:
1. Has anyone done this before?
2. Does anyone know where I can get an audio enabled DVI to HDMI adapter ? (I know that ATI use to make a special adapter. Not sure if they still make it or if it would would on an NVidia Card.)
3. Anyone have any better Ideas on how I can get both Audio and Video through HDMI? If need to buy another card I will (hope I don't have to though)

 I have same issue and that should work if your video card supports it. Didn't work on mine due to hardware issues.

Quickest solution is to get a cheapie ATI video card with onboard hdmi. Don't expect great gaming performance at all, but video out works well. These are made for this purpose I think.

 Thanks for the reply:

Do you know the names of any of the graphics cards you're talking about?

I usually get all my stuff at newegg.com but it's really hard searching for cards with audio...

I found a few with HDMI outputs but they don't say anything about audio. 

K_Asante:

 Thanks for the reply:

 

Do you know the names of any of the graphics cards you're talking about?

I usually get all my stuff at newegg.com but it's really hard searching for cards with audio...

I found a few with HDMI outputs but they don't say anything about audio. 

Try the ATI Radeon HD 4350 or HD 4550

Read the reviews on newegg. It will show this cheap and effective solution.

 I have a Nvidia card with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter on it, and I had the same audio issues you're seeing.  My understanding of it is that the card is spitting out audio packets along with the video packets.  But since the graphics card doesn't have any audio on it, those packets are empty.

I've read numerous accounts of people connecting the SPDIF output on their mainboard to the SPDIF input on the graphics card and remedying the situation, but my mainboard doesn't have SPDIF capability.

So I fixed it by going into the Nvidia Control Panel and in the "Change Resolution" section, changing it to "HDMI - HDTV (Audio Disabled)".

This gets rid of those empty packets and my TV then begins listening to the analog audio inputs again.

The funny thing about it, though, is that it doesn't work after a reboot.  It'll come up, and claim to still be in "Audio Disabled" mode, but no sound will come out.  I've discovered through trial and error that I can change that setting to "HDMI - HDTV (Audio Enabled)", click Apply, and then say No to the prompt about keeping changes.  On my particular setup, the screen then goes dark and I have to turn the TV off and on again, but when the TV reboots I'll have sound.

 I think that's a major bug in the Nvidia software and I'm looking at installing a Radeon 4650 to bump the WAF up a bit, but it has solved my problem temporarily and might at least give you something to work with before getting a new card.

 Also, here's a post on another forum that I found in my travels with a software approach.  I never had a lot of luck with it though.

 As a followup to my previous post, I have now fixed the HDMI audio issues on my Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS card.

The Nvidia software for Win7 has a slightly different structure than XP, so the edit to the NV_DISP.inf file needs to be put in a different place.

Here's the new post , and the gist of it is that you put the EDID of your specific TV into the software install itself, so the software always remembers that you have it attached.

Now I can sleep and restart and everything and the audio stream in the HDMI is always disabled so I can hear my analog audio!  I am so happy!

madmaso:

 As a followup to my previous post, I have now fixed the HDMI audio issues on my Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS card.

The Nvidia software for Win7 has a slightly different structure than XP, so the edit to the NV_DISP.inf file needs to be put in a different place.

Here's the new post , and the gist of it is that you put the EDID of your specific TV into the software install itself, so the software always remembers that you have it attached.

Now I can sleep and restart and everything and the audio stream in the HDMI is always disabled so I can hear my analog audio!  I am so happy!

Awesome, I am going to have to try it out. Would be nice to get that working finally. No more VGA.