Any successful Denon HTPC's?

Sure, I will tell you how I fixed it with my denon 3806. I canned the Ati and their horrible drivers and went to using the integrated intel gpu.

I had the same issues as you. I finally said enough is enough.

Well, unfortunately, unlike Assassin, dumping ATi and going back to the Intel i530 GPU does not work with my Denon 3808.

Whatever I use, there are issues.

If I use the Intel GPU, then changing input sources on my TV breaks the HDMI connection from the HTPC via the Denon, and I have to reboot the HTPC. I also can't use the YCbCr colour space setting in the Intel driver, because then I don't see the on-screen Denon GUI display.

If I use the ATi 5670 card with Catalyst drivers version 11.8, then TMT5 pauses for about a second every 40 seconds when playing a Blu-ray, and if I downgrade to Catalyst drivers version 11.4, then the pause goes away, but if I hit Mute on the Windows Remote, then the ATi HDMI Audio driver crashes and I have to reboot the HTPC again.

It's enough to make me hanker for the days when I had a standalone Blu-ray player. At least it worked.

Google "HDMI Detective Plus" by Gefen. Fixed my issues with my denon receiver and ATI 5450.

Been using an HTPC with Denon AVR's for years. Yes early on there were audio drop out issues, but that was due not just to drivers but also to Denon's early implementations. My 5970 cards have not changed and I've run them against my old 3808ci and now my new AVR-A100 and it works fantastic.

Also bitstreaming now works in WMC if using the right codecs and splitters. I've just installed Shark's and followed the few steps to enable bitstreaming and I'm good to go.

For my particular setup it did. YMMV on your particular setup.

I have a Intel i3 2100 H67 based HTPC, Denon AVR3806 and Samsung 61" DLP 1080p HDTV.

I have tried ATI, NVidia and Intel drivers. A summary of my experience is here.

I have a Windows 7 HTPC with an ATI 5670 and previously had a Denon AVR-791 and now have a AVR-4311CI, I use ATI drivers. It works perfectly and it has since I first put it all together in Dec 2010. Full bitsteaming and all. The HTPC normally goes into sleep mode and the only issue I ever had was with the ATI HMDI driver since 11.7. It sometimes fails to start the audio device when the HTPC wakes up from sleep. I fixed the problem by going back to the 11.6 HDMI driver.

Ultimately it didn't, but it may have made the issue less frequent (could be I am just imagining it did). I am still using the override.

The problem turned out to be the ATI HDMI driver. I rolled back to 7.12.0.7701 and haven't had a problem since. I believe I used the 11.6 installation. Just a note, you need to uninstall the HDMI driver first using the ATI installer then run version 11.6 and install the old HDMI driver. I still use the latest video though.

I had my ATI based HTPC working with my Denon 3808CI before it died (the AVR). I had to use an EDID override from here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=edid+override

EDIT: Sorry, missed the note where you said you already used one.

I second the Gefen DVI Detective. After all the money spent I feel another $85 is a drop in the bucket and I have never had a HDMI issue since then. I can turn off my tv, change sources on my Marantz receiver and my HTPC always comes back perfect. It even keeps audio playing through my receiver after I turn off my tv.

I played with all the overrides and software like HDMIyo but in the end the Gefen device was worth every cent. I have 3 of them now and haven't looked back. I have used it with a bunch of different video cards to include: Nvidia GT430, GT520, Sandy Bridge HD2000, ATI HD5450 and 6570 and never a HDMI problem.

I have a 2112ci and a 591 both work with zero issues using Nviida cards. I used both GT 545 and GTS 450. I have even use passive standby sometimes.

The PC I am typing on has the AVR-591 and is primarily a desktop. I use CEC-HDMI to power the receiver on and off. Since it is a workstation I often get up and walk away leaving the display on. I have the Panny LED set to use the limited power management it does have to shut down after certain amount of inactivity. Not ideal because it is several hours but when the Panny turns off, it powers off the Denon. When I come back to the desk I hit the on button on the TV. The remote is there but it is silly at 30 inches away. Turning on the TV turns on the Denon. When the Denon is up I hit the spacebar and the PC comes out of sleep.

Not a bad combo because the Panny uses mid 30 watts and the Denon the same at idle, actually the PC is in the 35 watt range too.

In the living room I have a DVDO DUO as my switching hub and it has a dedicated audio hdmi. The PC is completely oblivious to the power on status of the AVR-2112ci. I can run the PC with the display on/off and receiver on/off both off even. I did that for a good while as I had the Ceton hosted in that box.

The Nvidia doesn't seem to care what devices are on or off. I have the DUO in auto stanby so if video comes up somewhere it wakes up. I sometimes use a Media Extender to access content on the PC and play it back through the Duo to the Denon and the display.

Even PC direct to the Denon it works fine as you would expect. I just don't have any reason to run my main HTPC that way. The only reason I can think to do that in my case would be to have the Denon OSD overlay PC video. I just don't bother with that. In that case I need access to the AVR OSD I switch the inputs on the display to another HDMI port to see the OSD. I can see the front panel on the AVR fine and unless I am calibrating audio with Audyssey, the OSD is of little interest. On the workstation I do see the OSD during the power on of video and audio.

All that is a long winded way of saying go Nvidia. Getting rid of ATI which I used loyally for years just eliminated so many problems, not the least of which was handshakes. Now I confess the Denons came after the ATI stuff was mothballed. I never gave one thought to handshake issues with the Denons before I bought these two receivers as I never owned any Denon product before. The experience wth both Nvidia and the Denons has been totally hassle free. Something I can't say about ATI which gave me nightmares.

I have used Clarksdale and Sandy Bridge iGPUs for short period and they seem to work fine with the Denons as well. I like Intel iGPUs they are just not powerful enough for doing madVR at high settings.. but for me they appeared to be trouble free as well.

I would have too see a lot of really positive feedback about ATI before I ever went down that road again. I have been extremely pleased with the Denons. They run very cool and use very little power until called upon. Actually I used to run a Sharp 32" 1080P LCD, it was at the time a very expensive piece, and it used as much or more power at my desktop than the 37" Panny and the Denon does together with the Denon getting loud.

I actually bought the Denon because it has HDMI standby pass through. In the end I decided to not use that feature. I could have and have done when I wanted to. I can turn the Denon off completely as specced it passes the video directly from the PC to the display with zero drama. So how is that for no handshake isses? The Nvidia drivers even pick up on the change and swtich the audio driver speaker count to reflect the TV rather than 5.1 channel setup of the Denon.

Stop and disable the "AMD External Events Utility" service.