Home cinema setup help - HDMI Audio through AV Receiver

Soldato
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England - Leeds
Hi there, I really need your help and advice with a more complicated home setup. I've had this setup for years but only recently ran into problems when I bought a new monitor. I've attached a picture I drew on my Ipad Pro to show you the setup in my living room.

I recently bought the "Benq 35" curved ultra wide 144hz" for £600 and when I use the windows shortcut to extend monitors "windows+p" it suddenly didn't output any audio if my projector was plugged into the output source on the AV Receiver. So I plugged in the TV instead and then it lets me have 144hz and audio and everything worked fine when in "extended mode", I now have audio and 144hz.

Regarding outputing video/games from PC to monitor/projector/TV I've always been able to use "duplicate" mode when pressing "windows+p" but the reason I'm using "extended" mode is because when I press windows+p" and set my output to "duplicate" it won't let me select 144hz in windows and that really sucks because one of the reason I bought this monitor in the first place was for 144hz gaming.

So basically:

  • duplicate mode = 60hz with audio and no issues
  • extended mode = 144hz with audio but the AV Receiver keeps trying to switch to TV and this causes my games to go into windowed mode every few minutes which is really annoying.

So my questions to you guys are:

  • Can I somehow force 144hz to my monitor using duplicated mode?
  • Can I somehow stop my AV Receiver doing this annoying thing of trying to switch to TV during gameplay? It only seems to do this when in games?
  • Is there an easier setup I could use like a seperate sound card instead of outting sound from my GPU to AV receiver?

Other Notes:
  • Sound is outputted via hdmi from GPU to AV Receiver.
  • my monitor is using display port from GPU to monitor.
  • I also own a 5.1 creative sound card which has optical (which I dont use for anything)
  • My AV Receiver is Yahaha RX-V373.
  • I'm using windows 10.

I only bought this monitor a few days ago but it's driving me crazy as I can't seem to fix this problem, first problem I had was I couldnt set it to 144hz, then I solved that by setting it to extended mode, then I didnt have any sound in extended mode but for some strange reason I solved that problem by plugging my TV to the AV receiver with HDMI. Then now I have this 3rd problem which I only know how to solve by having the TV turned on. If I have the TV turned on when gaming then the AV Receiver doesn't seem to do anything, and everything is fine. But if I turn the TV off or unplug the TV from the AV Receiver it will suddenly try to switch to TV and I will lose audio, games crash, and games often go into windowed mode. I'm not sure if this is a handshaking issue or if there's a setting that I just need to disable like ARC etc?

I'm really hoping someone else who also uses AV Receivers and multiple displays who understands these issues can help me out with this problem.

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help given.

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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2009
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11,175
Duplicate might not be working, possibly because of difference in resolutions or refresh rates.

The TV needs to be connected, so Windows can detect two displays. Windows doesn't detect the AV receiver as a second display, just the screen connected to the receiver's output.

You said duplicate and 60hz works, is that with the TV turned off?
 
Soldato
OP
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England - Leeds
Duplicate might not be working, possibly because of difference in resolutions or refresh rates.

The TV needs to be connected, so Windows can detect two displays. Windows doesn't detect the AV receiver as a second display, just the screen connected to the receiver's output.

You said duplicate and 60hz works, is that with the TV turned off?

Hi there mate, thanks for your help so far.

Yeah in duplicate mode everything works, even if the TV is turned off or even unplugged from the AV Receiver. Well, everything put 144hz that is.

I wish I could have just left it in duplicate mode at 144hz but in windows it wont let me select it, that option is only available to me when I use extended mode but then that's where the problems start. It's very strange and very frustrating.

EDIT: Also just for clarification, I'm only having problems when playing games with my PC and monitor. When I output to my projector or TV that all works fine so this problem is solely with the monitor and AV Receiver.
 
Soldato
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Very unlikely you can get duplicate to work when using 144hz, because of the different refresh rates that the AV receiver and TV cannot support. That at least makes sense.

I suppose it probably also makes sense that extended display will only work when the TV on, as Windows cannot extend the display on to a screen that isn't on.

If there is an answer to getting this to work without having the TV on, then it's above my pay grade, so to speak. :p

One solution you could use, even if it's just a temporary one (assuming there is a solution to the above), would be to use optical from your sound card. Do you know which one it is; maybe a Sound Blaster Z?
 
Last edited:
Soldato
OP
Joined
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Location
England - Leeds
Interesting; so duplicate must work differently then. With extended display, it needs to detect a second display for that to work. When the TV is turned off or removed, that is when the issues occur.

Having the TV disconnected from the AV receiver when using duplicate, might suggest that Windows doesn't need to detect a second display for that to work.

Not really sure what the answer is for getting it to work over HDMI, but one solution would be to use optical from your sound card. Do you know which one it is; maybe a Sound Blaster Z?

I'm not sure mate, I don't think its that one, I think its a cheaper version, around £50 and can only do 2.0 output via optical.

I'll try it tonight when I get home anyways and see what difference it makes and I'm also going to go into the TV settings and see if i can disable ARC and anything else which could be sending signals to the AV.
 
Soldato
Joined
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SB Z, at least the OEM one is about £50, but if it's older, could be an Recon3D or maybe X-Fi Titanium. Anyway, there's a good chance it has Dolby Digital Live, which encodes to Dolby Digital 5.1 in real time.

If it does have that, then at least you could use that for audio, if you can't come up with any solution using HDMI. If the sound card doesn't have DDL, then you could use optical from your motherboard (if it has it and Realtek). There is a guide in this section that explains to get DDL enabled using cracked drivers.
 
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