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Loss of sound on HDMI when turning TV back on...


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Old 14-06-2016, 15:11
tim1964
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Hi,

I'm trying to use a permanently connected laptop as a HTPC running KODI via HDMI to the TV.

The only problem I'm having is that when I turn off the TV (gotta sleep sometime) and then turn it back on the sound has gone.

Rebooting the laptop solves the problem but it is a real pain as it is "plumbed in" with all the wiring and has limited space to open the lid in situ.

This has never been a problem with my WD TV Live.

I've searched for a solution (from blocking pin 19 to all sorts of software tweaks) but still no luck.

It does seem a common issue, going by the number of threads but I haven't found an answer.

The TV is an LG50PK350 and the laptop is running WIN 10 if that helps.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
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Old 14-06-2016, 15:28
chrisjr
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It could be a handshaking problem between laptop and TV. Possibly the handshaking is not operating properly if only the TV is turned on and not the laptop. Don't know if turning off HDMI-CEC would work, LG call it SimpLink, not sure what the laptop might call it. It may or may not help, but no harm trying.

Could you not use a wired/wireless external keyboard/mouse with the laptop to make it easier to reboot rather than have to dig it out and use the built in keyboard? Not the ideal solution but may ease the pain a little
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Old 14-06-2016, 15:53
Marti S
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If your TV has a quick start option, whereby it dosent put the TV into a deep standby, it might be worth trying.

Have you tried pulling the HDMI cable out and putting it back in rather than rebooting?
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Old 14-06-2016, 15:55
gomezz
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Or try switching the HDMI source on the TV away from the laptop then back to force a new handshake?

Edit: Actually I think the problem is at the laptop end and you could try toggling whichever Fn key combination it uses to switch to using the HDMI out.
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Old 14-06-2016, 20:31
barbeler
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I have both a Humax HDR 2000T and a TalkTalk YouView box plugged into the two hdmi ports on my TV and this used to happen all the time, but only to the Humax. The problem seems to have gone away, so I can only assume it has been corrected by an automatic firmware fix. It does sometimes fail to respond to all commands though and the only answer then is to physically unplug it for a few seconds.
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Old 14-06-2016, 20:31
tim1964
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Thanks for the replies.

I do have a keyboard/mouse that I can use but rebooting each time is still a bit of a faff and not at all intuitive.

Looking at what others have said on other sites, it does point to a laptop issue where the sound output part of the graphics card "sees" the TV as off and therefore cuts the sound.


As I'm only looking at using it as a KODI unit I'm wondering if it might be better in the long run to get an Android box instead???

My budget would be <£50 as any more than this and I might as well go for an Nvidia Shield.
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Old 14-06-2016, 23:47
tim1964
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If your TV has a quick start option, whereby it dosent put the TV into a deep standby, it might be worth trying.

Have you tried pulling the HDMI cable out and putting it back in rather than rebooting?
Or try switching the HDMI source on the TV away from the laptop then back to force a new handshake?

Edit: Actually I think the problem is at the laptop end and you could try toggling whichever Fn key combination it uses to switch to using the HDMI out.
Tried the above, still the same
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Old 15-06-2016, 09:48
Chasing Shadows
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As I'm only looking at using it as a KODI unit I'm wondering if it might be better in the long run to get an Android box instead???

My budget would be <£50 as any more than this and I might as well go for an Nvidia Shield.
As the majority of Android boxes cost less than 30 quid on Amazon that's not a problem. Or even an Amazon TV Firestick - we installed Kodi on that, it's just as stable as the two Android boxes we've got running Kodi. I think they cost about £35 at the moment.

Our Android boxes both have Kodi, Netfilx, Amazon Video, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, whatever channel 4 and channel 5's streaming apps are called and Youtube installed on them. We've got Amazon music installed on both as well - simply because my fiancee subscribes to Amazon Prime, so she might as well take advantage of all the freebies that gives her. Both boxes are used solely for streaming the output from these apps to the two TVs they are connected to.

Both Android boxes were bought from Amazon - both MXQ machines, the first cost about £25, the second £22 or £23 a couple of months later. One of the TVs is an LG 55 inch telly that's about 18 months old. We've never had a problem with the audio from the android box not being passed to the TV, regardless of whether the TV and/or the box has been switched off or left on.

You can even turn on HDMI CEC control on the android box and the TV, so that turning on the android box wakes the telly up, turning on the telly wakes the android box up. And turning off the TV turns the android box off again too. Only causes an issue if you've got lots of HDMI connections to the TV and all have CEC enabled - because then you end up with whichever wakes up last always taking control of the TV, and you have to manually switch back to the connection you want once all are talking to each other.
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Old 15-06-2016, 12:18
tim1964
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The Amazon Fire TV stick does seem a popular option but it has a bluetooth remote instead of an IR one.

I use a Harmony universal remote for the TV, Freesat, WD TV and AV receiver so would rather not have to use 2 remotes.

It's a shame about this sound issue as otherwise the laptop is ideal for the job.
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Old 15-06-2016, 12:30
Night Crawler
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The Amazon Fire TV stick does seem a popular option but it has a bluetooth remote instead of an IR one.

I use a Harmony universal remote for the TV, Freesat, WD TV and AV receiver so would rather not have to use 2 remotes.

It's a shame about this sound issue as otherwise the laptop is ideal for the job.
Don't know if this will be any help. My custom settings on my laptop (Win 8.1) are, second screen only and do nothing when the lid's closed, I don't recall going into any audio settings, only those on media players, I've never had an issue with the sound going. My connections are, laptop to AV receiver to TV.
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Old 15-06-2016, 12:39
chrisjr
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The Amazon Fire TV stick does seem a popular option but it has a bluetooth remote instead of an IR one.

I use a Harmony universal remote for the TV, Freesat, WD TV and AV receiver so would rather not have to use 2 remotes.

It's a shame about this sound issue as otherwise the laptop is ideal for the job.
I suspect the Amazon remote is Bluetooth because of the Voice Remote option it has. It probably fires over the voice commands as audio to the main box for processing rather than try and do it in the remote control unit.

HDMI is nice in concept. Just the way manufacturers have decided to implement it sometimes gives the impression that they are all reading a different version of the specs! It can be a real pain getting two different manufacturers kit to work nicely together sometimes.
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Old 15-06-2016, 16:46
tim1964
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Don't know if this will be any help. My custom settings on my laptop (Win 8.1) are, second screen only and do nothing when the lid's closed, I don't recall going into any audio settings, only those on media players, I've never had an issue with the sound going. My connections are, laptop to AV receiver to TV.
You may be right about the 2nd screen part.

I have the laptop screen to "do nothing" when the lid is closed but can't remember if the TV or the laptop is set to screen 1 (or 2) ???

I'll have a look later and see about swapping them over.
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Old 15-06-2016, 17:02
chrisjr
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You may be right about the 2nd screen part.

I have the laptop screen to "do nothing" when the lid is closed but can't remember if the TV or the laptop is set to screen 1 (or 2) ???

I'll have a look later and see about swapping them over.
Not sure if it makes much difference which screen is 1 or 2. What might be more of an influence is which screen is set to be your primary desktop display. And also whether you have the screens set to Clone or Extended mode.

In Clone mode both screens display the same thing so the concept of Screen 1 or Screen 2 may not come into play, everything that happens on 1 also happens on 2 and vice versa.

If you are in Extended Desktop mode then both screens behave independently. So you can have entirely separate programs running simultaneously on each screen if you so wish. In that case which screen is designated as Primary (which is not necessarily the same as 1 or 2) may have an effect on how things work.

The Primary screen is the one where the Taskbar and your main group of desktop icons appear. The secondary screen is usually devoid of such things, it just shows a desktop background when not in use for running a program.

In Win 10 the Display Properties box you want to look in is this one

https://manual.openlp.org/_images/ne...ings-win10.png

Make sure the drop down "Multiple Displays" is set to "Extend these displays" as shown in the image

Click on Identify to find out which screen is 1 or 2. Click on whichever number screen the TV is in the box then select "Make this my main display" if it is not already.

See if that has any effect.
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Old 15-06-2016, 17:35
jcjeffe
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Over the years I have had several problems with computers not working with a TV via HDMI. I remember a sound problem which was cured by a different video card. At the moment my RPi2 running Kodi doesn't like my TV so I have to switch it on 5 seconds after the TV otherwise no video.

I recently bought an Amazon device for the catch up services and managed to install Kodi but it is too tied down by Amazon to consider it replacing the RPi.

Chris
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Old 16-06-2016, 13:37
tim1964
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Not sure if it makes much difference which screen is 1 or 2. What might be more of an influence is which screen is set to be your primary desktop display. And also whether you have the screens set to Clone or Extended mode.

In Clone mode both screens display the same thing so the concept of Screen 1 or Screen 2 may not come into play, everything that happens on 1 also happens on 2 and vice versa.

If you are in Extended Desktop mode then both screens behave independently. So you can have entirely separate programs running simultaneously on each screen if you so wish. In that case which screen is designated as Primary (which is not necessarily the same as 1 or 2) may have an effect on how things work.

The Primary screen is the one where the Taskbar and your main group of desktop icons appear. The secondary screen is usually devoid of such things, it just shows a desktop background when not in use for running a program.

In Win 10 the Display Properties box you want to look in is this one

https://manual.openlp.org/_images/ne...ings-win10.png

Make sure the drop down "Multiple Displays" is set to "Extend these displays" as shown in the image

Click on Identify to find out which screen is 1 or 2. Click on whichever number screen the TV is in the box then select "Make this my main display" if it is not already.

See if that has any effect.

Tried all of the above again, still no difference.

It's ridiculous that something so simple has no way to fix it.

I'll have another go at the pin 19 mod with a spare HDMI lead to see if I can remove the pin/wire rather than try taping over it.
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Old 17-06-2016, 11:33
tim1964
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Appear to have found a solution.

I tried running Openelec from a USB and the issue with the sound not staying on with the TV back on was gone. I don't know if that is because it's a "Windows" thing or because it was running from a USB.
If I fully install Openelec hopefully the problem won't return.

Now I just need to find out how to have the laptop display off when connected to the TV.
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Old 17-06-2016, 11:57
Night Crawler
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Appear to have found a solution.

I tried running Openelec from a USB and the issue with the sound not staying on with the TV back on was gone. I don't know if that is because it's a "Windows" thing or because it was running from a USB.
If I fully install Openelec hopefully the problem won't return.

Now I just need to find out how to have the laptop display off when connected to the TV.
Select second screen only. You will see everything on the TV while the laptop display will be blank.

Switch the TV off and the picture returns to the laptop.
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Old 17-06-2016, 12:58
tim1964
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Thanks for the replies,
I can see where to select second screen, to have only the TV as I had that working when running Kodi through Win 10 but I was hoping to dual boot the laptop but have Openelec as the default.
I can't see anything on KODI/Openelec that has any settings for the latop screen/TV.

Also I don't need the display reverting to the laptop when the TV is switched off as the laptop is under the TV and left closed.

I'm also finding that when I have Openelec running on both the laptop and the TV the display is fine but if I set the playback setting to from default to HDMI and 1920 x 1080 it is huge and I can't see all the screen unless I reset it to default ???
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