Blank screen with HDMI, displayport and HDMI ARC (SOLVED)

[jaylumx]

UPDATE: Solved

When I connect my 3080ti to qn90b via HDMI 2.1, my 3080ti to soundbar via passive displayport to HDMI adapter and my qn90b to soundbar via HDMI ARC, the screen is blank till it reaches the windows login screen with no motherboard POST so I cannot get to the bios. When I disconnect HDMI ARC between qn90b and soundbar and boot my system, the motherboard POST shows and I can get to the bios.

When I plug my 3080ti to qn90b via active displayport to HDMI adapter (supports DSC), my 3080ti to soundbar using a passive displayport to HDMI adapter and my qn90b soundbar via HDMI ARC, the screen is not blank and I am able to see the motherboard POST screen and I can get to the bios here.

I would prefer to use the first method since I can get VRR. I cannot for the life of me figure out why I cannot get the POST when I boot up my system with the HDMI, passive displayport and HDMI ARC all connected.

I cave updated the 3080ti firmware to update the displayID but that does not affect HDMI does it?

[ToastyX]

The problem is the GPU sees two displays, and there's no way to choose which one during boot. I assume you only have one HDMI port. Try moving the soundbar to each DisplayPort and see if one has lower priority than the HDMI port. Also try the active adapter with the soundbar and see if that changes anything. If that doesn't help and your CPU has integrated graphics with HDMI on the motherboard, try using the soundbar with the integrated GPU.

I'm confused about your setup though. Why do you have the soundbar connected to the GPU if you're using ARC? You should be able to send the audio through HDMI to your TV which then sends the audio to the soundbar. Another option is to connect the soundbar to the GPU and the TV to the soundbar. Either way, you'd only be using the HDMI port on the GPU.

[jaylumx]

(09-04-2022 03:43 AM)ToastyX Wrote:  The problem is the GPU sees two displays, and there's no way to choose which one during boot. I assume you only have one HDMI port. Try moving the soundbar to each DisplayPort and see if one has lower priority than the HDMI port. Also try the active adapter with the soundbar and see if that changes anything. If that doesn't help and your CPU has integrated graphics with HDMI on the motherboard, try using the soundbar with the integrated GPU.

I'm confused about your setup though. Why do you have the soundbar connected to the GPU if you're using ARC? You should be able to send the audio through HDMI to your TV which then sends the audio to the soundbar. Another option is to connect the soundbar to the GPU and the TV to the soundbar. Either way, you'd only be using the HDMI port on the GPU.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I do not have an APU even though my motherboard has an HDMI out but will give the other options a go.

To answer your question, my GPU is connected to the soundbar's HDMI IN and my TV to its ARC OUT. Sending audio through my TV to soundbar will only net me lossy audio and 2 channel PCM audio while connecting soundbar directly to GPU would get me lossless 7.1 audio, lossless Atmos and DTS:X. Were I to use an EARC extractor(TV supports EARC), I would be limited to lossless 5.1 and Atmos only.

With my current setup, I can switch audio between my TV's internal apps and audio from my GPU using the soundbar's remote and because of the ARC connectivity, I can use my TV's remote to change the volume of the sound coming from my GPU as well. I only use the soundbar's remote to change audio outputs.

[jaylumx]

Did find a solution of somewhat in getting to the bios. I just select the output connected to my soundbar (phantom monitor) which shows the POST and allowing me to get to the bios. I also found a solution to my display's wake/sleep issue when enabling or disabling HDR in Windows 11. Something to do with my soundbar audio output and my display's audio output fighting for attention causing whole display to sleep, so I just used CRU to remove all audio entries on my display so now it is constantly disabled in windows and the issue I have had for month seems to have been resolved. Words cannot describe the frustration I have had in trying to resolve that specific issue; bought new active and passive cables, numerous EARC extractors, cheap graphics cards to use to passthrough audio etc and all I had to fricken do was remove the audio entries for my display.

So anyone having issues with display and you have a soundbar connected to your PC and your display has its own audio output, I would recommend using CRU to remove audio entries for the display only.