HP Pavilion Laptop - Digital Audio Out - Solved!

[highpriest]

Hi all,

I've been struggling the past few weeks to hook up my laptop to my receiver (Yamaha 861) for multi-channel audio. I have two HP laptops, the older one has an SPDIF out (which I assume is a mini toslink) and a newer one with a Blu-Ray ROM, HDMI out and dual headphone jacks (Pavilion dv6920ea).

When I set the default audio device as the Digital output in the control panel, as expected, the analog sound cuts out. Since the neither of the ports was marked as SPDIF, I assumed it would send out multi-channel digital audio via coax.

Experimented by connecting a stereo to RCA cable to the coax input of the amp - no luck. Got onto Google and started reading. Most people suggested that it could be mini toslink but I didn't have a cable handy and I wanted to be absolutely sure before purchasing one.

More research, more confusion. Many others seemed to believe that HDMI would only send out video signals. I decided to give it a try. Lo and behold! When I plugged a HDMI cable into my receiver, I was getting multi-channel digital audio!

I set the Realtek Digital Output device as my default audio device and played a DVD using Windows Media Player (the laptop has Vista Home Premium 32-bit installed) and the amp received a perfect 5.1 digital sound signal. Very pleased

I don't have any Blu-Ray discs handy so does anyone have experience playing blu-rays through such a setup? Would this laptop send audio through HDMI for Blu-Ray discs the same way it did for DVDs? Would I have the ability to decode the new Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD formats on my laptop and send them via HDMI to my receiver (the Yamaha 861 cannot decode these formats)?

Any suggestions welcome.

Cheers
HighPriest

[Mark_a]

When you have an HDMI socket fitted on a laptop it tends to grab the digital audio and switch off the digital audio out from the sound sockets. I'm not sure why they do this, but when I questioned Alienware on this behaviour I was told it's a fundamental motherboard thing, and not something they could fix with updated drivers. It's bizarre if you ask me. Why they think anyone would want the mini-toslink switched off just because the HDMI is in use I don't know. Sony have managed to achieve this with their Playstation 3, but no laptop I know of has. Weird, and not to say bloody annoying.

Regards

Mark

[highpriest]

Originally Posted by Mark_a

When you have an HDMI socket fitted on a laptop it tends to grab the digital audio and switch off the digital audio out from the sound sockets. I'm not sure why they do this, but when I questioned Alienware on this behaviour I was told it's a fundamental motherboard thing, and not something they could fix with updated drivers. It's bizarre if you ask me. Why they think anyone would want the mini-toslink switched off just because the HDMI is in use I don't know. Sony have managed to achieve this with their Playstation 3, but no laptop I know of has. Weird, and not to say bloody annoying.

I suspect there's more to it. This laptop, I'm sure, does not have a mini toslink port. Both headphone outputs at the front at just plain old analog headphone outs. My older laptop has one port clearly marked SPDIF and when I shine a light into the port and look carefully, I can see that it's different on the inside.

So manufacturers have saved a couple of quid by leaving out the optical connector on laptops that have HDMI. What's more annoying is the complete lack of documentation about any of this on the HP website/manuals. Would it kill them to tell us?

Thanks for reading.

Cheers
HighPriest

[highpriest]

Oh, and any ideas on decoding the latest HD Audio formats on this machine? I'm trying to save some money by not investing in a PS3 or Blu-Ray player if I can make this thing work properly.

Cheers
HighPriest

[Mark_a]

Well, my Alienware m15x has got fully programmable 3.5mm sound sockets that can be either inputs or outputs, analog or digital. If I connect up a mini-toslink cable to my AV amp and just play a DTS Sound sampler DVD for example (or even a CD) I get full digital output from the audio socket. The moment I activate the HDMI output by plugging it into my display then the digital sound is cut off from the audio port and re-routed to the HDMI lead. Analog stereo is still fed independently to the audio socket. There's no switch settings that will put digital sound back to the audio port when the HDMI is active, either in Windows or the BIOS.

Like I said, Alienware say that's how it is and there's nothing can be done about it. The answer to the 'problem', as far as they're concerned, is to get an AV amp with full HDMI inputs (not just video only as some are), and hard luck if you don't have one.

Regards

Mark