We recently attended a customer’s home that had a strange audio problem. They had a Windows laptop computer serving as a Medial Server, that they used to play movies to their TV. The laptop was connected to the TV using the HDMI connection.
The customer had plugged a Logitech Soundbar into the TV’s 3.5″ headphone socket.
When the movie was played, the sound would only come from the inferior TV’s built-in speakers.
He could not get the sound to play from his new Soundbar.
To fix the issue, I noticed that the generic “Microsoft Display” adapter driver was installed.
What many HDMI audio systems do, is combine the HD audio driver as part of the graphic card’s driver.
A quick Google of the laptop specifications, showed that the laptop was fitted with an Intel GPU.
During the installation of Windows, the generic Microsoft GPU driver had been installed in order for a picture to be painted on the screen rather than a Black screen. Unfortunately during the installation., Windows had failed to discover the Intel GPU chip on the Motherboard.
Unfortunately I had no idea what the GPU was so I went to Intel’s website which lets you download the
“Intel® Driver & Support Assistant” tool which helps you easily identify the Motherboard’s Intel hardware.
After I did that the Intel tool told me that the computer was missing the Intel “GPU “Display” drivers.
Using the tool I easily installed the Intel Display driver.
After doing that, the customer’s Soundbar burst into life and the look on my customer’s face was priceless!
If you have the same problem but your computer doesn’t have an Intel GPU, then the other manufacturer’s websites has a similar tool that lets you download and install the correct drivers for the hardware.