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This is *really* obscure but STW seems to be about 90% beardy IT pros... 😉
My work laptop is W10, and I usually have it plugged into a monitor or TV through HDMI. Back when I first got it, it'd recognise each monitor/ TV individually (eg Vizio xxxx), and there'd be the option of outputting audio through the HDMI.
Since then and various W10 updates, it now only recognises monitors/ TVs as "generic pnp monitor", and it doesn't recognise the HMDI as an audio output option - on playback devices where "Vizio xxx" would be an option before, there's nothing there now.
Audio and graphics drivers are all sorted, working fine, but it seems like W10 just doesn't recognise the screens any more, so doesn't recognise they have speakers.
Has anyone come across this or had any luck fixing it?
I wonder if this is a general W10 thing that an update has broken. My speakers, that have always been plugged in to the back of my HDMI monitor, stopped working the other day. Plugged them in to the 3.5mm jack in the back of the computer and they’re fine.
Mine does still show the name of the monitor though.
Connect 'em up, right-click the devices in Device Manager and choose "update this driver."
Failing that, delete them and reboot.
Failing that, ping back here and we'll try something else.
Hmmm.
For the monitor (Viewsonic), update driver caused it to download a driver and it now names it under "monitors" when connected. Still no option to output through the monitor speakers though.
For the TV (Vizio), update driver caused no change - it said the latest drivers were installed for Generic PnP monitor. And no option to send audio through HDMI
Delete & reboot then. (Probably won't work but worth a punt.)
Oh yeah, I'm a nob. Update Driver on your video card too. (What is it?)
Don't worry, I'd already tried that various times - both the Intel and nVidia drivers are up to date and working well!
The monitor driver it's using now is the exact model you have?
Bit of a long shot but sometimes with P2V'd VMs they get in a mess with hidden buggy devices so I follow this process to make sure they're cleaned up properly (I know yours isn't a VM, this is just how to fully show any devices your Windows OS is aware of or has been aware in the past):
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Click Start>Run</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Type cmd.exe at the command prompt and click OK</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 and hit ENTER</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Start Device Manager</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">When the Device Manager opens, click the View menu</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Click Show Hidden Devices</span>
Then delete any old monitor/sound stuff that's not in use
Interesting one - deleted a bunch of sound devices not in use, and numerous generic PnP monitors. Device Manager still recognises the monitor as such, but the TV remains a generic PnP monitor (and can't find any better drivers).
And neither has the option of outputting sound via HDMI in Windows 🙁
A quick Google would suggest that Vizio doesn't make OEM drivers and relies on OS support, which is a bit of an embuggerance.
Try hitting "troubleshoot" in the audio settings (right-click the systray speaker, "Open Sound Settings") maybe?
May be relevant:
My W10 laptop somehow got itself into 7.1 sound mode and would not output any sound via hdmi. Changed to 5.1 which is what it was actually connected to and hey presto, sound.
Oooh, interesting - how on earth did it do that?!
Try hitting “troubleshoot” in the audio settings (right-click the systray speaker, “Open Sound Settings”) maybe?
Interestingly, the only issue it finds is "Generic Audio Driver", which apparently it's using. It still, however, recognises that the devices is Realtek (and realtek drivers are/ were installed).
More broadly, it just doesn't see that it should have more output options, so the troubleshooter thinks everything's fine...