Sound problem in Vista MC

A short recap of a problem I posted at The Green Button.

My sound stopped working over HDMI today in Vista MC. It has been working for several months previously without problems. Today the problems started, and I haven't even installed or updated any new software. I'll try to explain the details (I've rebooted, checked cables and all the simple stuff):

- Sound over SPDIF (optical) works
- Sound over HDMI does not work with Vista codecs in VMC (e.g. playing DVD or live TV). It does work with ffdshow audio, e.g. playing a Divx file - even within VMC. This makes me think the problem is not hardware related.
- Sound does not work with ffdshow audio through zoom player, but it does work using Media Player Classic (as well as VMC). This is extra weird since the codecs in use are the same.

If I exit VMC, open audio properties and play some windows sounds the sound is spotty, i.e. it comes and goes. If I configure the HDMI sound device the test sounds play perfectly.

The next day I figured new drivers could never hurt, but had problems finding them. It turns out that Intel High Defnition Audio HDMI is bundled with the driver for the G965 graphics. I found a new version over at Intel, dowloaded, installed, rebooted and the sound is back to normal.

What still has me stumped is that I had made no modifications at all to the system to make the problem appear. But I'm happy it seems to be solved now.