Hello all,
I've been trying to solve this problem for about 6hrs now, and have gotten to my end point. I need help.
Been trying all day to connect my G750JW laptop to my new Samsung 60" (5500 series) plasma TV, connected through my Yamaha (RX-V1700) receiver via HDMI. When I plug my HDMI cable into the laptop, I get a beautiful picture with no sound. In short, I have narrowed the problem down to my Asus ROG laptop and have ruled out any other component being the issue. This is how I ruled everything else out:
- Different HDMI cables do not fix problem (even those known to support audio)
- My old laptop (Dell XPS 1645) works perfectly. I just have to select 'HDMI Output' under playback devices
- Plugging new laptop directly into TV seems to work fine - audio comes through TV speakers. So the problem is the HDMI hand-shake between my receiver and my laptop.
- Turning the TV off, leaving the receiver on, shows the receiver listed as a playback device - but selecting it still doesn't allow audio through my receiver
My audio playback devices tab looks like this:

The laptop picks-up on the Samsung TV, but for some reason it does not play any sound through my receiver. I am unable to make 'HDMI output' the default device because that option is greyed out. I'm positive if I could only select 'HDMI output' as the default device, things would work (as it does on my old laptop) - it's like my laptop doesn't recognize I've plugged anything into my HDMI port - but then again, it does recognize it as the video plays fine. The audio device also recognizes
something got plugged in there - so why does it still grey it out?
I have tried uninstalling & reinstalling & updating my graphics card and audio card devices/drivers. NVIDIA & Realtek (including display adapter) are now all running the latest drivers. I've done all this a few times now. This is what my device manager looks like:

There is a thread on here where someone with an almost exact same issue - they resolved it by disabling or uninstalling/reinstalling the Intel HD 4600 audio device. But as you can tell, that isn't listed as a device on my laptop.
I have tried playing with the NVIDIA Control Panel. This is what the 'Set up digital audio' section looks like for me:

Trying to change the device from SAMSUNG to something else provides no other options besides 'turn off audio':

I also read somewhere that you can alter the 'Connector' setting to an option that was 'HDMI with audio' but I get no drop down bar at all to change anything under the 'Connector' heading:

Other things I've tried to no avail:
- Plugging HDMI in, restarting.
- Removing HDMI, restart, plug everything back in
- Various other reboot sequences plugging different things in at different times
- I'm sure I've tried other minor things as well - like I said, been at this 6hrs now
I am truly at a loss for anything else to try here. I'll do anything at this point to get this working. I've renovated my entire rec room, make a custom in-wall AV rack, brand new TV, brand new couch just arrived today - everything is all ready to go after a year of hard work - and now this has failed. Not sure if I should be angry with ASUS or NVIDIA or both.
Please help!
😞