I recently purchased myself a new HIS ICEQ3 3870. I've always had my Onkyo 605 (HDMI reciever) hooked up to my old X850XT via a DVI/HDMI cable. I want to use the built in sound to now send my sound to my amp, but I'd prefer not to have to buy a new HDMI/HDMI cable ( as this is a 30 foot run).

Does anybody know how I could "trick" the card into allowing me to do this?

Thanks.

some cards allow you to feed SPDIF from your sound card to the video card and they mix it into the signal.
I don't know if your card does that. If it does you just need to run SPDIF wire from your sound card to the video card.

I'm sorry I didn't make it clear that this is not so much a computer question and more of an AV question. I get my AV and computer geek worlds crossed sometimes.

That said, the ATI 3800 Series come with built in 5.1 sound. It has an HDMI adapter to put it out via HDMI. My problem is making this cable, which is DVI/HDMI appear to be HDMI/HDMI.

Are you saying that you have a cable with a DVI connector on one end and a HDMI connector on the other end? And you want to connect the DVI end of the cable to a HDMI connector now? If yes and yes, there are adapters you can buy.

larry

Almost. I want it to look like a HDMI/HDMI cable to the hdmi port so that it will send the audio. My understanding is that stock, it will still see it as DVI/HDMI, and not send the audio.

The cable has nothing to do with what the source device "sees". If the source device is capable of sending HDMI audio and the target is capable of receiving it, the connectors or cable don't matter. In other words, the cable is passive. During "handshaking" the target device will tell the source device what "things" it can accept. This is not always foolproof, especially where PCs are involved and/or where one of the devices is DVI based.

larry

Edit:

Here's something I found in a description of your video card: "With built-in 5.1 surround audio (AC3) pass-through capabilities, the new GPUs and graphics cards support a single HDMI connection direct to a compatible TV or receiver."

Taken at face value you will be able to send Dolby Digital bitstream audio with video via HDMI to your HDMI receiver. DTS or PCM may work, but they went out of their way to say AC3.

You should check in the HTPC forum here for more info on your video card. eg. can it pass other audio formats, etc. And your manual should explain some of this. At least ATI is based in Canada and there shouldn't be the usually translation issues like for other PC gear. :)