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.

HTPC status report, episode 2

I finally found an easy way to replace caps lock with ctrl. Also, the front VFD display seems to be working somewhat. I did a hard reboot (power off, cord out) and it came back to life. No thanks to the support over at Fujitsu-Siemens who so far has missed two times out of two possible.

What else is new? I'm thinking about getting the Media Control Plugin for Media Center. And I've replaced IE with Firefox. IE 7 was bearable, but I like firefox much better. And with the del.icio.us Bookmarks plugin I get synced bookmarks between all my computers. Brilliant.