dh67cf and optical audio

[RehabMan]

If you are planning to use the optical audio spdif port on the back of the Intel DH67CF mini-ITX board, be aware that the settings for the Realtek digital audio are a little screwed up.

It seems that in the Control Panel -> Sound where the sound output devices are listed it lists Realtek Digital Output and Realtek Digital Output(Optical).  Given that I was connecting to optical, I chose Realtek Digital Output(Optical).  After 4 hours of swapping out computers, A/V receivers, configuring the A/V receiver, etc.  I stumbled upon the fact you have to select Realtek Digital Output, not the optical one.  I don’t know if they have them reversed as I don’t have the SPDIF header (coaxial) connected to anything.

My system based on DH67BL does not have this problem.  There was one other person on Intel communities that was having the same problem, and another that confirmed the work around.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

[swoon]

You probably do have the latest driver from Realtek installed, but if not, give that a try.

[RehabMan]

It happens with both the latest driver 6392 (from intel.com) and with the generic one you get from Windows after removing the driver.

[swoon]

Try the drivers direct from Realtek and see what happens.

[RehabMan]

I installed it on my desktop machine.  It installs same version, 6392, so it appears Intel is up-to-date with respect to Realtek drivers.

[swoon]

Okay. It was hard to reconcile 6392 to R2.62 that Realtek states on their site.

I suppose it’s just the way the driver is right now. It would be worthwhile contacting Intel support to see what they say.

[RehabMan]

So, I went to contact Intel about reporting the problem I had as a bug, and then by the time I got to walking them through the problem, audio via optical just stopped working entirely, no matter which output was used.  That was when just 30 minutes before it was working (albeit on the wrong output selection).

An hour chat later, they are going to investigate.  And… I may try some more things around here over the weekend should I have a chance and the weather is poor…

[RehabMan]

This is crazy stuff.  I decide to pull it out of its environment (garage) and try hooking up to the living room system.  Different receiver and all.  The garage system has a really old A/V receiver (Denon AVR-5600) — I know, the thing is a dinosaur, but it is a really nice amp and for basic use in the garage, what the heck.  So, I hook it up to the Yamaha HTR-5063 in the living room, and… it works right away…

So… I put the HTPC back in the garage and it works there too.  Still using the Realtek Digital Output (not optical) of course, so that problem is still there.  Maybe there is some soft of cabling issue here.  I’m using a new cable from monoprice, which BTW, I opted for their premium cables (still good price) but I really do not like the ends they put on them.  I guess I will try their non-premium ones next — they are quite large, and on a system like the DH67CF the end touches the very edge of the I/O shield.  Same goes for hooking up large HDMI ends on this board.  It looks to me like Intel could have raised the whole set of hookups in the I/O shield by 3/16″ or so…

Anybody also have a DH67CF that can try optical just to verify the output mix-up in control panel?

At least now I can contact Intel and say it is working again, just with the wrong selection in control panel.

[swoon]

Definitely sounds like a cable or cable to port interface issue. No need to apologize for your Denon. I just replaced a 3300 

[RehabMan]

[quote=swoon]

Definitely sounds like a cable or cable to port interface issue. No need to apologize for your Denon. I just replaced a 3300 

[/quote]

Probably a cabling issue on my not being able to get it to work.  Definitely not helped by the fact that Intel/Realtek seem confused on which output to activate based on which output you select in control panel.  How they got that wrong on the DH67CF and got it right on the DH67BL (pretty much same thing, different form factor), I don’t know.

[RehabMan]

The 5600 was a great AVR for the day (1996).  It cost be a bundle too!!  Now in my garage.  Ouch.

I only curse it when:

– Harmony remote gets out of sync with on/off.  There is no discrete IR for on/off.

– Whenever I have to configure the digital audio input assignments.  You have to have it hooked to a TV (composite video) to change most of the configuration items and in my current garage setup it is audio only.   I have a relatively long RG6 cable that I screw on some RCA adapters to and run across the hood of my car over to the TV temporarily to make these sorts of adjustments.

– Whenever I have to move it.  The darn thing is heavy!

– So far, it doesn’t seem to output anything to the sub output for normal stereo sources over SPDIF.  I’m not yet sure what I’m going to do here, I suspect I need to hook it in parallel with the front speaker terminals.

[swoon]

For your sub output, do you have your speakers set to small? Small should force the low frequencies to the sub.

[RehabMan]

[quote=swoon]

For your sub output, do you have your speakers set to small? Small should force the low frequencies to the sub.

[/quote]

Thanks for the idea. I tried that and it didn’t help, even though my speakers are more “over-sized bookshelf” than “small.”  I even tried switching the listening modes to “5-channel stereo” etc. and nothing will cause it to take a 2-channel stream and make it a 2.1, fronts to the speaker terminals and sub to the RCA sub output.  I think that amp is just too ancient to do all the things we just expect to work.

I ended up just hooking the front speakers up to the sub right along with the fronts and that fixed the problem.  Sub now does the crossover analysis and things sound pretty good (for a garage).

Now we are officially “off topic”…

[swoon]

Interesting. On the 3300, the sub is active on any mode. There’s even a page in the manual detailing modes and which speakers are active in those modes.

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