The Acer Guy

On another post, I received a question from Troy about getting sound from the HDMI output on his Aspire 5920.

I’ve come across this problem before on my home theatre set up so I thought the problem would be similar.

What you have to do is go into Control Panel –> Audio Devices (DO NOT click the Realtec CODEC but on “Audio” in Windows Vista) and select HDMI as the default audio ouput. When you use the DVD, the audio will be redirected through the HDMI bus and you’ll be able to hear it on the TV. You might need to change it back once you’re done though.

Here’s a screenshot of the “Audio” menu you should see. It’s in Italian but hey, beggars can’t be choosers

You want comments? We got comments:

1. Troy wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   Thanks Michael – I’ll give it a go later!

2. Jing wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   Something to keep in mind when I get a HDTV unless the connector changes in the next few years as it does all too frequently.

3. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   I must dig out that copy of What Hi-Fi that explains the difference between HDMI 1.2 and 1.3.

   I don’t think there’s a PC on the planet with HDMI 1.3 as yet and if I’m not mistaken, it’s the audio quality that suffers, as 1.2 can’t handle the quantity of data that is available in one of the Dolby Digital formats on HD-DVD or Bluray.

   Still, HDMI is amazing anyway you look at it.

4. dahak wrote, on September 12th, 2007:

   

   Mkay, another question. (this place needs a forum)
   I linked my 5920 to a friend’s 21″ display with a native resolution of 1600×1200, through the VGA port
   Problem is, from my laptop, I couldn’t set a resolution higher than 1024×768, which looks quite horribly on that screen.
   Where did I go wrong, how do I set a higher resolution than 1024×768 on a bigger, external screen?

5. Colin Welch wrote, on September 13th, 2007:

   

   you should be able to set it to 1280×800, thats what mine is at

6. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 17th, 2007:

   

   Dahak,

   Because the panels are different, you cannot clone the internal LCD in an external monitor (internal is 1280×800 with ratio = 16/10, external is 1600×1200 with ratio = 4/3) you can choose to use only the external monitor, and set the resolution to 1600×1200 or you can use the “desktop expansion” feature, selecting the external monitor as primary, the internal lcd as secondary. In this way you can manage the different resolutions of monitors. Cloning the desktop is not possible.

7. Nick wrote, on August 11th, 2008:

   

   Michael, thanks very much, I’ve be struggling to resolve this issue and your advice worked and now we are watching the Bejing Olympics with sound!! Thanks for posting…

8. Janna wrote, on September 24th, 2009:

   

   I don’t have the hdmi icon in my audio control panel. I have the acer aspire x1700. We only have the chioce of realtek digital output, realtek digital output (optical) and speakers which is not selectable. We have it hooked up to a plasma via an hdmi cord and per the tv manufacturer’s instruction manual, also the typical audio cable. We get certain sounds at normal volumes, but most of it is muffled. I am ragged from scouring the internet for help. Save me?

9. Emanofoz wrote, on October 16th, 2009:

   

   We have the same problem as Janna with the Accer x6930. I find an Intel HDMI driver in device manager but it doesn’t show up in the audio control panel. How can I add it to the audio control panel so I can use it?

10. Richard wrote, on November 25th, 2009:

    

    Tried your solution to no sound from hdmi on my 5920 to no avail. Any other suggestions?

Leave a Reply