Workaround Windows Terminating HDMI Audio Playback When Sleeping Monitors

A quick tip for tonight.

One disappointing “feature” in Windows 7 is when you are playing back audio to a television over HDMI and the power saving feature kicks in to turn off connected screens it also stops audio from being transmitted over HDMI. This can be annoying when you are relaying sound to a television or home theatre system and you want to listen to music from your computer.

If you want to get around this issue then one solution is to create a new power plan that doesn’t allow the monitors to go to sleep.

Create an HDMI audio power plan

Create an HDMI audio power plan

Whenever you fancy playing back audio just change the power plan to “HDMI Audio” but don’t forget to put it back to balanced just so your computer isn’t on all the time chewing up power.

Perhaps Microsoft can fix this in time for Windows 8?

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