The last few days I have been pulling my hair out over my new HD TV not working with my Home Theatre PC, specifically when switching from HDMI input to TV and back again. The HDMI signal is lost and can only be reset by either rebooting the PC or unplugging and replugging the HDMI cable.
This problem seems to affect ATI video cards only, with NVIDEA updating their drivers to fix this. ATI states that Catalyst drivers at version 7.3 or higher have fixed this problem, but that wasn’t the case for me. A Google search for ati hdmi edid shows a number of users with the same problem.
Hence, I present to you my solution; hdmiOn.
hdmiOn is a tiny program that turns the monitor off and on, which resends the EDID data bringing back the TV to life. Suggested usage is to assign the program to a function or hotkey.
Program was tested on my Sony BRAVIA KDL46X3100 with a ATI HD 2400 PRO.
As requested, source code is as follows.
#include <windows.h>
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
// Turn off monitor
SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, (LPARAM) 2);
// Turn on monitor
SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, (LPARAM) -1);
return 0;
}
Tags: ATI, BRAVIA, DVI, EDID, handshake, HDMI, hdmiOn, loss, TV, unplug
I am also having a problem with HDMION.exe staying open and refreshing every like 5 mins on windows 7 x64 RTM.
I just want it to do it once then close automatically.
This is a very nifty utility. Rather than bind it to a hot-key, you can create a Windows task that runs hdmiOn when the machine wakes from sleep. Utterly painless.
Task scheduler can execute a task based on Windows Events. The event for wake up is in the System Log under Microsoft-Windows-Power-Troubleshooter. The event ID is 1.
Hey, good news! This problem has disappeared it seems with the latest round of drivers, at least for me on W7 RC. Has anyone noticed this as well?
I am having a similar problem but with HDMI audio. If I turn on the HTPC before the TV, the HDMI audio is disabled. I tried your utility and the problem is solved!! Somehow the hdmiOn reset also initializes the audio capabilities of the TV.
Thanks.
@flop I just installed Windows 7 32-bit (clean install) and still have the problem had in XP. Since it was a clean install, maybe I need to install the latest drivers from ATI as opposed to what Windows 7 used automatically (3d graphics are working fine, so I wasn’t planning on updating drivers).
I have a gigabyte motherboard with built in ATI 4200 HD card. I use it for my HTPC the HDMI port only! I notice when I turn on the pc without the TV on first audio doesn’t work, when I unplug the HDMI cable and plug it back in CCC says “HDMI to DVI detected!?!?!” running HDMIon doesn’t fix the issue either, I need to shut down the pc and restart it with the TV on first. then audio is fine. I’m going to upgrade it to Win7 hopefully that will fix this bizarre issue.
[...] now every time I take the TV out of stanbby I have to reset the HDMI connection by either running a clever app or powering the TV off and back on . Why? Because ATi can’t be bothered to fix the issue [...]
Great little app, works like a charm! Thanks a lot :-)
A quick note. I have sucessfully been runnning hdmiOn when my monitor won’t show the screen when I switch HDMI sources (xbox to pc). It works great. I am running win7 btw. I have since discovered that firing ctl-alt-delete has the same effect as hdmiOn. It’s possible that the task mgr menu screen that appears runs in a specific resolution and that is what brings the monitor back to life, whatever the cause, I just wanted to let people out there know that they can try a 3 finger salute as an alternative.
Is there anyway to bind this tool to a key on my microsoft media center remote?
Works a treat with my sony bravia / media portal setup. Switching between game console and media portal pc – to check the cricket score – now means I don’t need to reboot!
Thanks mate! Appreciated.
[...] I finally found one…a small application consisting of only a few lines of source code called hdmiOn. hdmiOn essentially resets your monitor which causes EDID information to get resent and that is [...]
The perfect fix for the TV not powering back on! I trigger this using EventGhost with a simple call to run HdmiOn.exe when I select “Watch TV” on my Harmony remote. Thanks so much for making this and fixing the issue ATI apparently doesn’t want to!
I’ve written a little app called HdmiYo that adds the hot key binding to application and automatically does the EDID when the machine wakes up. Hopefully other may find it helpful.
HdmiYo 0.1.0
thank you very much
Thanks for this little and very usefull app.. I’d like to use it with my Harmony remote too ! Hello Georges, would you precise me the plugin and event that you used with EventGhost to do it ?
Holy Crap! This is golden, I’ve been battling with issue on my second panel for months now.
Thank You!
LG32lx2r hd was working fine with w7 on cq61, then after a round of updates, I just can’t get the laptop to recognise the tv and wake it up.
It does though still see the tv using dvi – hdmion didn’t work here unfortunately so am still looking for help – ati 4200hd card.
Cheers tho
THANK YOU!!!! I had the same HDMI problem. I searched all over and finally found this site. The program works GREAT!! thanks a TON!!!