Here's my strange problem....

I don't use my HTPC as my primary TV yet.  I only have one ATI Cable card and that won't cut it as I can only watch/record one program at at time. This will change when I get a Ceton.

So, I have my FIOS DVR on HDMI-A on my TV and my HTPC on HDMI-B.  Often when I switch from DVR to HTPC the screen is black.  No video, no sound.  For some reason the HTPC machine hasn't sensed that the TV is now connected.  I push buttons on my remote control and know that it is changing the display (more on that later) but nothing shows up on the screen.  Only a reboot lets my PC talk to my Sharp Aquos TV.  My video card is a Radeon 4650 chipset.

The reason I know that it's responding to my remote control is that I can later log on to my HTPC via LOGMEIN.com and I can see the results.  I can move around and see the screen via LOGMEIN but the TV screen stays black.  If I reboot via my LOGMEIN session the TV screen is active again.

I've checked my power settings and they are set to never turn the screen off and never turn disk drives off.  It never goes into hibernation or sleep mode.  Just nothing on the display.

Any ideas?

HDMI handshake error when you switch to your HTPC.

I have it every so often.  I press CTRL-ALT-DEL once on my Dinovo Mini and that apparently does enough of toggle to get it connected again.  With a remote only it is more of a hassle.

I basically have this same issue. It seems to be a feature of Windows 7 RTM as I only just recently switched from the RC, which didn't have this issue. I also have ATI video, though it is onboard. I tried installing a Catalyst driver package and that didn't change anything. The weird thing is that Media Center is still there, it's just behind a black screen overlay or something, because I can still click where the X would be to close out the application. So, for you, is this a new issue? Did it start via an update? Did it exist for you in RC?

After using the site's built-in search engine instead of Google, I ran into this: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/p/80853/402268.aspx#402268 Which I'm trying now... Aaaand it doesn't work, well sorta. Tried turning off the TV with Media Center at the start menu and it worked when I powered the TV back on. Tried turning it off while playing Recorded TV and nothing. So I played around with editing the generated .inf file and told it to force the TV to stick to the native rez and it seems to be working more often now. The TV still cycles though a bunch of weird modes though before settling on the one it's supposed to be set at. Who would have thought that HDMI would actually introduce more issues than it solves!?

Ok the issue came back. It seems to happen when the TV is turned off while a video is "playing". And by playing, I mean it is currently playing OR was played and stopped but never unloaded (still appears in Now Playing). Has anyone actually been able to resolve this issue or should I hack up RC and switch back to that?

 I had this issue and solved it with a bit of a work around.

My system is HTPC --> HDMI Switch ---> TV

My TV only has 1 HDMI port and I still have my old stand alone DVD player hooked up through the HDMI switch.

I use a Harmony remote to control everything. I'm not at home to tell you exactly how to do it but basically, when the off button is pressed on the remote, everything is turned off and the HDMI switch is changed to a different input. Likewise, when everything is turned on, the HDMI switch is moved back to the position that works with the HTPC. This has been working great for months.

I have another button on the remote called 'fix black screen' that basically switches the HDMI switch away for the HTPC and then back again. I rarely have to use this. Really only if the remote gets confused and wasn't aimed correctly.

Hope that helps someone.

Ogre:

Ok the issue came back. It seems to happen when the TV is turned off while a video is "playing". And by playing, I mean it is currently playing OR was played and stopped but never unloaded (still appears in Now Playing). Has anyone actually been able to resolve this issue or should I hack up RC and switch back to that?

It is usually a HDCP issue. Sometimes it can be solved as something as simple timing issue by using a different (longer) HDMI cable or a firmware update for your AVR and\or TV. For my Sharp LCD a firmware update fixed my problems. You can use MONINFO to try setting up a static EDID.

If Moninfo isn't working for you, you can try setting up a script with AutoHotKey that starts the Catalyst Control Center and changes the resolution to 1080p.  Running the script to change the resolution might be all it takes to get your display back.  To run the script when you can't see the screen, you can have AutoHotKey create an EXE for your script.  Create a shortcut to the EXE and then assign a keyboard shortcut.  Later you can use a program like LM RemoteKeyMap to assign the EXE to a button on your computer's remote.

Another possible solution, though this one will cost you, is to try a DVI Doctor or HDMI Doctor which can help make your HTPC think that the TV is turned on and set to the HTPC's input even when the TV is not.

I appreciate all the help guys but I don't want to have to resort to hackery to get this working. The HdmiOn.exe guy's site is back up:

http://thydzik.com/hdmion-a-solution-to-loss-of-dvi-video-epid-signal-on-hd-tvs/

And I'm going to give this a try-out sometime today hopefully. According to him, this issue has been fixed in newer NVidia drivers but I believe a lot of Media Center users use ATI for obvious reasons. So, can we confirm that this only exists on ATI based systems? Ed Bott told me this issue only seems to happen in "older" ATI chipsets but the 3000 series isn't really that old so I'd like to narrow it down a bit. The board I'm using is a Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H which has Radeon HD3300 onboard graphics.

I've tried the EDID hack and it didn't work. As far as drivers go, I started with the driver that ships on the RTM Windows 7 DVD, which has the issue. Currently I'm running Catalyst 10.1, which also has the issue. And Catalyst 10.3 is currently downloading. If 10.3 fixes the issue, I'll reply here. If not, I'm prolly gonna make a video showing the issue and try to get in touch with someone at ATI.

Well, uninstalling 10.1 caused a bluescreen during the uninstallation process. Not a good start to today's troubleshooting session.

Ok, bluescreen didn't seem to affect the uninstallation process and the driver was removed properly. Installed Catalyst 10.3 and the issue still exists. Next step is to try HdmiOn.exe. Not looking forward to setting up telnet on laptop and HTPC but if this works, it's a viable solution until we can get whatever vendor's stuff is causing this solved. Not sure how to have Windows fire an event and have HdmiOn.exe run when the TV is turned on though (yet).

Ogre:

Not sure how to have Windows fire an event and have HdmiOn.exe run when the TV is turned on though (yet).

I can give you code for that if you are interested.

Yeah, that would prolly help out a lot. I was trying to find an event in 7's new weird Task Scheduler but I couldn't find anything that seemed useful. I don't even know if HdmiOn.exe will fix the issue yet and people are still using the HTPC so I won't be able to test it over telnet for a few more hours. I'll let you know though, thanks!

All that app does is send two messages, to turn off the display and back on. This is not guaranteed to work. Other times (depending on your video card) minimizing Media Center and then restoring work more reliably. I haven't run into the issue myself for a while, used to happen with my NVidia G210 and GT240 but an update (beta) driver fixed it. On my i3-540 the issue hasn't happened yet so I'm very happen about it. It would only happen to be if a video (Live TV or any video) was playing when the attached display was turned off.

Yeah that's the exact issue I'm having. If the "video playback subsystem" has a video (Recorded TV, Live TV, Video File) "loaded" (playing, paused or stopped but still loaded) and the TV is turned off and then turned back on, a black "overlay" appears in front of Media Center, but the mouse pointer is still visible. I can actually see the interface for a brief moment when the TV is turned back on but then it cycles through display modes before landing on the mode set in Windows and then the black overlay appears.

I will not buy more hardware to fix the issue. I will find a way to fix it using software. I will not compromise in this. :)