Audio drops out every 30 minutes on Windows through Sony STR-DN1080 (1 Viewer)

[drybones99]

I have a bizarre issue. First of all, here is my setup:

PC: Custom-built with Intel i7 8700K, Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, and Windows 10
TV: Samsung Q90T 65" 4K TV
Receiver: Sony STR-DN1080
Speakers: The entire Sony Core Series
Connections: The 1080 Ti is connected over HDMI to HDMI 4 on the TV and the STR-DN1080 is connected to the TV over eARC.

Whenever audio is playing through the speakers, after anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour, the audio cuts out for a whole second before resuming. Obviously, this is very distracting when you're in the middle of the action in a movie when suddenly, there's no sound for a whole second and sometimes even slightly longer before it comes back.

In order to test this issue more thoroughly, I played a constant tone using this audio waveform generator: https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

Sure enough, after 20 to 30 minutes, the audio would drop out for a second before coming back. I think I can rule out the receiver, since I have other devices attached to it, such as a Nintendo Switch, which do not exhibit this problem. These devices are directly attached over HDMI to the back of the receiver, so eARC is not being used with them. I played a game with constantly playing music on the Switch, and after a whole hour, there were no drop outs. Thinking eARC was the problem, I tried similarly testing another console, this one attached directly to the TV over HDMI, so that eARC would be in use to output the sound to the receiver. However, there were no drop outs there, either. I thought that perhaps I had a low-quality HDMI cable, so I got a certified HDMI 2.1 cable to connect the receiver to the TV. This changed nothing.

Having done all of these tests, I can safely say that the problem probably lies within Windows itself. What could be causing this? I don't get any dropouts when connected to my monitor over displayport with stereo desktop speakers. This only happens with the receiver. I have tried messing with the Windows Settings, driver settings, and other things countless times, to no avail. I have also messed with all the settings on the TV and on the receiver, also to no avail. I even made sure that I had the official Dolby Atmos for home theater set up in Dolby Access on Windows. In fact, Dolby Atmos works perfectly when playing content through MPV, and the sound is remarkably good. Unfortunately, it still cuts out for a second every half hour or so.

What can I do to resolve this annoying issue? I have tried just about everything, so I have now come to this forum to ask for help. Any response would be appreciated.

 

[drybones99]

UPDATE: After some more testing, I have found that the audio drop-out issue exists even when playing sound directly through the TV's speakers, thus ruling out the receiver as a culprit. I suspect that the issue has to do with the HDMI port on my GPU and Nvidia's drivers for it.

 

[juevlorde]

With that being said, one thing did remove the audio drop outs on Windows: disabling Dolby Atmos. If I select Stereo instead of Dolby Atmos under "speaker setup" in the sound control panel, I can run the tone generator without drop outs. Unfortunately, I can only get sound in MPV if I allow it to run in exclusive mode, and when doing this it still outputs Atmos, but I get the same drop outs even when the speaker setup is set to "stereo." In Plex Media Player, I can get sound, but without exclusive mode, it's only stereo.

 

[juevlorde]

With that being said, one thing did remove the audio drop outs on Windows: disabling Dolby Atmos. If I select Stereo instead of Dolby Atmos under "speaker setup" in the sound control panel, I can run the tone generator without drop outs. Unfortunately, I can only get sound in MPV if I allow it to run in exclusive mode, and when doing this it still outputs Atmos, snaptube vidmate but I

get the same drop outs even when the speaker setup is set to "stereo." In Plex Media Player, I can get sound, but without exclusive mode, it's only stereo.