ASUS XONAR HDAV1.3 Slim Next Generation PCI Sound Card Help

garethk1979

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Hi guys and girls. I'm typically very PC savvy having built my own computers in the past but this is one that I can't find much information on. I have a Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Elite motherboard and a Powercolor Red Devil RX-6800 XT. I watch a lot of movies and have my PC connected up to a 75 inch TCL C735 and on the audio side it's connected to an Onkyo TX-NR6100 via HDMI. I have two cables from the PC, one is using a display port to HDMI adapter which goes to the tv and the second one comes from the PC to the AVR. I have been using the display extend method built in to windows 11 so that I can get full audio capabilities sent to the AVR and also retain my 4K at 144hz on the tv. I have just managed to purchase an Asus HDAV 1.3 slim PCI soundcard because I thought that would be the best way to alleviate having to use my extend display technique. After realising that my motherboard doesn't even have a PCI slot (I need to read things better when I buy things online) I bought an M.2 to PCI legacy adapter. I plugged in the aforementioned parts and the PC booted up fine with the soundcard being recognised by Windows. After this is where the confusion begins.....

Does anybody have any experience with these sound cards and in particular their installation and setting up? Do I need to have a HDMI going from my GPU to the soundcard and then one from the soundcard to the AVR? Or can I just have one going from the soundcard to the AVR? I had it plugged in and recognised but I'll be damned if I could actually get any audio from the card. Any help would be amazing! Thanks
 
There were very few of these HDMI equipped sound cards and they weren't very popular.

Looks like the manual is available on the Asus website:
https://www.asus.com/uk/supportonly/xonar hdav1-3 slim/helpdesk_manual/

It looks like you do need a video signal connected for the HDMI output to work.


However, I very much doubt this is what you're looking for. In order to add or modify the HDMI audio it's got to understand the HDMI signal so you're likely to be limited to whatever the capabilities of PCI-era HDMI was - possibly Full HD at that refresh rate.

It certainly won't understand the new FRL signalling introduced in HDMI 2.1 and required for 3840x2160@144hz.

I would look elsewhere for a solution. Have you tried feeding the amp 144hz anyway and seeing what it does with it? Or how about the multi-monitor apps that can provide mirroring for disparate resolutions like ultramon?
 
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A couple of problems.

1 - This card dates back to 2009 so that is quite a long time ago.

2 - There is a windows 8 64-bit driver from 2013 which is the last driver released and might work with windows 11 but that is no guarantee.

3 - its unique HDMI pass-through is designed for GPU runs through the soundcard HDMI input then HDMI output to sound system however this HDMI port is 1.3 based, so your going to lose the HDMI 2.0/2.1 support via this that means no 4K 60hz.

If the driver somehow still works in win 11 and you just connect up the HDMI output of the soundcard to the AVR (leaving GPU direct to the TV) you will likely still be in the same situation as before were it treats it as a second monitor.

An alternate solution is remove the sound card and go back to multi-video output from GPU but give Ultramon a try (it has demo). This software expands the control over multiple displays, you can see in feature section it has ignored monitor section which can also block the mouse and applications from ever going to that display (the Onkyo AVR).
 
There were very few of these HDMI equipped sound cards and they weren't very popular.

Looks like the manual is available on the Asus website:
https://www.asus.com/uk/supportonly/xonar hdav1-3 slim/helpdesk_manual/

It looks like you do need a video signal connected for the HDMI output to work.


However, I very much doubt this is what you're looking for. In order to add or modify the HDMI audio it's got to understand the HDMI signal so you're likely to be limited to whatever the capabilities of PCI-era HDMI was - possibly Full HD at that refresh rate.

It certainly won't understand the new FRL signalling introduced in HDMI 2.1 and required for 3840x2160@144hz.

I would look elsewhere for a solution. Have you tried feeding the amp 144hz anyway and seeing what it does with it? Or how about the multi-monitor apps that can provide mirroring for disparate resolutions like ultram
Ok yeah it was a spontaneous purchase lol. I have tried plugging my GPU straight into the AVR but it will only put out 120hz max not 144hz and it has noticeable input lag when compared to just using GPU>HDMI 2.1 port on the tv. I'm currently using the extended monitor trick where I have the GPU plugged into the tv and then I use the built in Intel graphics to send the audio straight to the AVR. I was considering purchasing one of these


But I just wanted to at least get the soundcard working so I can see/hear the difference. Really I just want full quality Atmos sent to the AVR whilst retaining my 144hz refresh on the TV.
 
I just tried that ultramon software. That worked great for the most part because it allowed me to hide the secondary display without actually disabling it but there was a small bug every time I opened chrome my cursor would get stuck in the top left of the screen, so that had to go.
 
You could try contacting the dev of Ultramon, whoever makes it last updated in 2018 its perhaps no longer actively developed.

Another multi-monitor management software is Display Fusion which is active developed but I cant recall if it has the same feature to hide monitors without disabling them.

Looking at specs of TV it can do DD+ Atmos just not TrueHD Atmos over eARC, but the only source of THD Atmos is Bluray if your not using THD Atmos files for playback then you could just stick to the eARC output of TV.

HD Fury also sell some devices that can work around limits but come at a high price, I think the 8K arcana might be what your after, passing through HDMI 2.1 but extracting the audio so windows wouldn't see it as a second display.

 
Yeah I looked at hdfury but unfortunately they've almost priced themselves out of the game for me. I thinked I've tweaked the ultramon settings so it works ok. Looks like I'll have a very rare soundcard for sale lol
 

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