no sound through HDMI

[Greg Gilfillan]

OS: Mint 16 Cinnamon 64 bit

When connecting to my laptop (Dell Latitude | E6430) to my TV through HDMI, the video out appears but no sound is ever transmitted.

Only the built in analog speakers appear as a sound output option in the sound properties.

Output of aplay -l:
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: 92HD93BXX Analog [92HD93BXX Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Output of aplay -L:
default
    Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server
sysdefault:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, 92HD93BXX Analog
    Hardware device with all software conversions

The HDMI output does not appear to be recognized. The HDMI sound output does work as expected in Win7.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

What CPU is in this laptop? I assume there is no discreet graphics card?

[Greg Gilfillan (greggilfillan)]

CPU:
     -> Intel Core i5-3340M @ 2.70GHz

I'm not entirely sure about the onboard graphics, two entries are given on System Info:
     -> Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core Processor Graphics Controller
     -> NVIDIA Corporation GF108GLM [NVS 5200M]

Other Info:
   Cinnamon version 2.0.14
   Linux Kernel 3.11.0-12-generic

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Yep, that means you've got discreet graphics (Nvidia). I don't know whether your Intel HD or Nvidia chip is connected to the HDMI port (I'd guess the Nvidia was, but it's a pure guess), and that will dictate where the issue is.

What do you get from "lshw -C display"?

[Greg Gilfillan (greggilfillan)]

~ $ sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GF108GLM [NVS 5200M]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:f5000000-f5ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:f6000000-f607ffff
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:46 memory:f6400000-f67fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Ok, so you're using the nouveau driver for your Nvidia GPU. If you can, please can you try to replicate the bug with the latest propriatory Nvidia driver (available in Synaptic)?

[Greg Gilfillan (greggilfillan)]

There doesn't seem to be a Nvidia driver (at least that I can find) for my model of GPU.

The Driver Manager does not list any proprietary drivers for my system. When I tried downloading a Nvidia driver from the software center, I broke my graphics capabilities and I ended up re-installing my entire OS to get Cinnamon working again.

I am done trying to install drivers on my own unless someone can point me to the exact Nvidia driver package I need for my GPU.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Is this the driver you installed: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/75067/en-uk
(it's the UK version, there are others if you need a different one)

[Greg Gilfillan (greggilfillan)]

I just tried installing the driver at the link you provided. After figuring out how to get Mint to run in CLI only, so I could run the installation script, my attempt to install the driver failed. Apparently installing NVIDIA drivers is beyond my ability and I'm done reinstalling my OS to recover from failed attempts to fix my HDMI sound issue.

Thanks for trying to help.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

I can only suggest re-posting this in the forum, where it can be worked on further with more people contributing

[Greg Gilfillan (greggilfillan)]

I tried running Ubuntu 14.04 (beta) and had the exact same issue with the lack of sound through the HDMI (it appears to be a shared issue between both operating systems). However, in Ubuntu I was able to get Nvidia drivers installed using the "additional drivers" utility, but still no sound through HDMI. I expect the results would be the same in Mint as well. On the plus side the video quality to the TV is now much better with the new driver.

I'm currently using NVIDIA binary driver - version 331.38 from nvidia-331

~ $ sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GF108GLM [NVS 5200M]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:50 memory:f5000000-f5ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:f6000000-f607ffff
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:48 memory:f6400000-f67fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

Again, I know the HDMI sound output works since I tested it in WIN7. I will also post this issue on the Ubuntu launchpad bug page. I will probably just stick with Ubuntu for now unless the issue gets fixed in Mint first. I will keep a persisent live boot version of mint around incase someone wants me to test possible fixes.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.