Graphics card with HDMI input

MisterEd said:

Do you have an DVI to HDMI adapter anything like this? This adapter uses a USB cable to add audio.
DVI to HDMI Video Adapter with USB Power and Audio - 1080p
DVI to HDMI Adapter - USB Power & Audio - HDMI & DVI Display Adapters | StarTech.com

The other end of this



is a typical HDMI plug.

kitpzyxmsir said:

The other end of this
is a typical HDMI plug.

I have to apologize because I was convinced that what you were doing was impossible. I did a lot of research and found the following...

DVI-I Port on computer

• Has pins for both digital (DVI) and analog (VGA) video outputs
• DVI to DVI cable used to connect to monitor's DVI-D port
• DVI to VGA adapter + VGA to VGA cable used to connect to monitor's VGA port

DVI-D Port on computer

• Has pins for digital (DVI) video output only
• DVI to DVI cable used to connect to monitor's DVI-D port

All the official sources said that DVI does not carry any audio. Most discussions agree with the official sources.
However, a few in online discussions said that DVI could also carry audio. Unfortunately, none of them could prove it. Fortunately, the article Does DVI Carry Sound? explains what is going on.

To summarize DVI-D ports have a lot of unused pins compared to DVD-I ones. Apparently, some manufacturers make use of these pins to carry audio. These audio pins only work if a DVI to HDMI adapter cable is used. Note the article also mentions that only video cards made in the last ten years supported that feature.

That article is the only one of two referencew I could find that said that audio over DVI was even possible. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain where it got its information. I looked at documentation for several computers and video cards with DVI-D video ports. None of them made any mention of whether audio was possible from its DVI-D ports.

I checked the specs for all my video cards with DVI ports. To my surprise only one had a DVI-D port. I used the computer with this video card to check whether the DVD-D port supported audio. By luck its monitor also has a 2 speakers. Normally I use a DVI to DVI video cable. For testing I substituted a DVI to HDMI cable. To my surprise when I switched the audio to the monitor sound started coming out of its speaker.

Note I will never use the monitor's speakers for this computer's audio because it's only 1 watt.

Indi said:

I can confirm audio with a HDMI/DVI cable.
I was surprised too but its real.
Got my HDMI/DVI cable from ebay.
Just a straight cable no adapter

Like I said you have to have a computer with a DVI-D port for this to work. If you have an older one with a DVI-I port it's not going to work. The DVI-I port uses all 24 of its pins so there is no extra pins to redefine for audio. The The DVI-D to HDMI adapter only uses 17 of the DVI-D pins so some of the extra pins could be used for audio.

All the wires inside the DVI-D to HDMI cable are just connected to the appropriate pins at each end because electrically DVI and HDMI are the same. No internal electronic components are required. That's why this is called a passive adapter. They also make active DVI-D to HDMI adapters. These are needed if you want to use a DVI-I port where there is no audio. For them audio must come from someplace else.

MisterEd said:

Like I said you have to have a computer with a DVI-D port for this to work. If you have an older one with a DVI-I port it's not going to work. The DVI-I port uses all 24 of its pins so there is no extra pins to redefine for audio. The The DVI-D to HDMI adapter only uses 17 of the DVI-D pins so some of the extra pins could be used for audio.

All the wires inside the DVI-D to HDMI cable are just connected to the appropriate pins at each end because electrically DVI and HDMI are the same. No internal electronic components are required. That's why this is called a passive adapter. They also make active DVI-D to HDMI adapters. These are needed if you want to use a DVI-I port where there is no audio. For them audio must come from someplace else.

@MisterEd,

Thanks for all your great investigation skills and hard work on this. Good lesson.