[meeotch]

I had a NUC media server running Kubuntu and Kodi v18, and HDMI passthrough was working well.  Recently upgraded to a new NUC that came with Windows 11.  Installed Kodi v18 so that I could copy my settings over from the old NUC - all went well, HDMI passthrough also working.

But with the new NUC, I'm getting intermittent (like once every ~20min) audio issues where the audio sounds like...  Difficult to describe.  It's tinny and robotic / digital-sounding, like a phone call with poor reception, or an mp3 with an extremely low bitrate.  After a few seconds, it goes back to normal.  Things I've tried:

• searching the forum for answers, obviously - most of what I've found just says to set the Passthrough device in Kodi to WASAPI, which it is.
  
• swapping HDMI cables
  
• upgrading to Kodi v19.5.0
  
• rewinding to the same sections of a video - the glitch does not repeat on the same sections
  
• trying different video files - seems to happen across files of various encodings and various audio streams
  
• trying DirectSound as the passthrough device
  

I don't have a log file yet, because the problem is so intermittent - I'd have to sit and watch until it happens, then note the time, jump out of kodi and capture the log to pinpoint any relevant messages.

Kodi audio settings:

1. channels = 2
   
2. output config = best match
   
3. maintain volume on downmix = True
   
4. resample quality = high
   
5. GUI sounds = never
   
6. allow passthrough = True
   
7. passthrough device = WASAPI:HDMI - SAMSUNG (2-HD audio driver for display audio)
   
8. all mutli-channel capabilities disabled (AC3, DTS, etc.)
   

Any suggestions to narrow this down?  I suppose it could be a hardware fault in the new NUC...  but it could just as easily be Windows audio settings that are boning me, as the hardware and the OS are the two things that changed when moving to the new NUC.  (Windows settings for the HDMI output device are at default 16bit 48000Hz.)

Passthrough audio goes from HDMI into the TV, then out of the TV via optical into a DAC.  But I'm fairly certain the DAC isn't the issue, as it works fine with the old NUC.

[jjd-uk]

First thing to do is make sure you have the current BIOS version as this contains the HDMI firmware. I have an NUC and had some audio issues however the BIOS in the shipped unit was out of date, upgrading to the latest BIOS version fixed the issues I had. However this was a couple of years so not with a current NUC model and I can't remember precisely what the issues were, so your issue maybe a completely different cause, but it's the first thing to elminate if you haven't checked this already.

[meeotch]

Thanks for the reply.  I checked, and there doesn't seem to be a new bios for this product (GMKtec G3 Nucbox)...  Could be because it's a new product - the build date listed in the bios is Oct 2023, which is pretty recent.

The manufacturer's site did have a full slate of drivers, but there's a gazillion of them, and they're unhelpfully named with strings of random letters, and only separated into broad categories like "Chipset", "Graphics", and "Other".  I'll fire off an email to support - but it's a Chinese manufacturer with no U.S. support presence, so I'm not expecting much.

Trying new drivers at random, when I feel like the "correct" drivers for most stuff are already included in Windows, seems like a slog...