Help me find a way around this (HDMI audio issue)

Hey guys, it's been a while.

So I ended building a pretty decent home theater system but I'm having a small issue with the sound.

I'm using my secondary machine (2600k, ASROCK Z68 Extreme 7, GTX 770) connected to my new home theater system (TV = Sony 50R550, Receiver = Yamaha RX-A2020).

Now I'm using EVGA's Precision X to increase the HDMI frequency to 120Hz. When the vid card is connected straight to the TV, there's no issue with the video but the audio is limited to the TV's speakers. When I try to go through the AV receiver, it doesn't work whenever I set a frequency higher than 60Hz but the sound is great.

So basically I want both. Haha.

I tried various things like using the ARC on my TV to feed the sound to the receiver but that's limited to stereo (unless it's an encoded source, that MIGHT go through but I didn't have the time to test and it doesn't work with my games so that's not good enough).

I tried hooking up the receiver to my onboard HDMI output, it worked, sort of. I had the video straight to the tv and I had surround sound but I lost it if I tried to disable the video to the secondary display (the receiver) and I lost audio when I tried increasing the frequency (because it kicks out the secondary display).

Optical might work for some sources but it won't work with the Blu-rays and I don't have my good sound card in the secondary machine so no Dolby-Live. I had my HT Omega Claro (the original one) in there at first but when it's connected, it disables the onboard sound so I lose the audio out of the onboard HDMI output.

Any other options I didn't think of? Any one knows a way to spoof the HDMI handshake so Windows sees the TV as 5.1 capable?

Any help would be appreciated.

Oh and the sound system is awesome

Receiver : Yamaha RX-A2020
Front : Paradigm Studio 20
Rear : Paradigm Studio 10
Center : Paradigm Studio CC-590
Sub : Paradigm Sub-12

One possible solution would be to disable the HDMI audio in windows, enable the on-board audo. Run audio from on-board to receiver.

Using which interface? Best I could do is probably optical and that has some severe limitations without something like Dolby-Live (and as far as I know, my mobo doesn't include it). Basically it'd be the same than using ARC, stereo most of the time except if the source is pre-encoded in dolby or dts and the optical can't output formats like DTS-HD (bandwidth and HDCP issue). Right?

The receiver doesn't have the inputs for the analog 5.1.

Unless I'm missing something, of course.

I run everything to the tv then audio back out to my receiver via optical out on tv to optical in on receiver

And you can output surround sound from your computer? Mine's stuck at stereo only when I'm hooked to the TV.

You on-board audio supports 5.1 output. Below is a snip from the manual on how....

I cannot fully verify that I'm in a small apt with 2 little girls one severely autistic so I can have wires or speakers everywhere lol. But I can say without a doubt the sound quality is far better to my ears. I'm basically running sub left right and center. In honesty we only have 2 ears so 2.1 is most adequate if tuned right you can get the spacial effect of surround.

kyfire said:

You on-board audio supports 5.1 output. Below is a snip from the manual on how....

Click to expand...

Except the receiver doesn't have 3.5mm inputs or any analog inputs that would support surround sound. The speakers themselves can't be connected that way either. Analog should be avoided at all costs anyway.

S_I_N said:

I cannot fully verify that I'm in a small apt with 2 little girls one severely autistic so I can have wires or speakers everywhere lol. But I can say without a doubt the sound quality is far better to my ears. I'm basically running sub left right and center. In honesty we only have 2 ears so 2.1 is most adequate if tuned right you can get the spacial effect of surround.

Click to expand...

This is a $10 000 system, using only 2.1 is not exactly ideal...