I've been searching these forums for a solution for 2 problems, but I can't find anything that satisfies my needs...
There are 2 big problems that are more than just a little annoying
1. Screen tearing
My setup is as follows: MSI Z87-G45 mainboard, i7 4770k with HD 4600 graphics. I'm running Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64 with 32GB RAM.
I have an AOC 23" HD monitor that is connected with a VGA cable and I have a Samsung 42" HD TV connected with an HDMI cable. The screens are duplicated.
My normal configuration is that my monitor is primary screen. Right-click desktop > Graphic Options > Output To > Clone Displays > Monitor + Digital Television.
When I want to watch Netflix on my TV, I get really annoying screen tearing, which I don't have on my AOC monitor. I've read a lot about this and from what I understand, this is caused by a sync issue between the PC and the TV. Changing any quality settings, vsync, refresh rate etc, either on the computer or the TV, I keep on seeing screen tearing. I've tested several different driver versions, from Intel, from Microsoft, ... all drivers have the same issue.
There is one thing that works though, and that is switching the PRIMARY SCREEN to the Samung TV with the AOC monitor being the clone (Graphic Options > Output To > Clone Displays > Digital Television + Monitor). The problem with this is though, that the screen tearing moves from my TV to my monitor.
Going through these forums, there are quite a few people having the same issue. The issue's been reported quite a while ago. I'm currently running the latest driver from Intel (10.18.10.3345). When is this finally going to be fixed?
2. Losing HDMI audio device
With my latest driver downgrade, this problem seems to be a bit better, but I'm not running it long enough to really confirm if the problem is solved. I had the latest driver update from Windows Update installed (10.18.10.3375). Whenever I switched my TV off, or I changed the source of my TV to my cable or DVD, the HDMI audio device disappeared. All of the devices that I could assign as default audio were Realtek Speakers and Realtek Digital Output. There's supposed to be a Samsung device as well.
Looking in my device manager I would still see the HDMI Audio device, but there's an exclamation mark on it, indicating a problem. The problem is automatically resolved after a reboot. Even though a reboot by itself doesn't take that long, we shouldn't have to do this!! I've got a lot of virtual machines running and it's always a big annoyance shutting them down, rebooting, logging back in, starting them up again and only then being able to watch my movies on TV.
From what I've seen so far, this "older driver" from the Intel website fixes the problem. But I really don't understand this. According to Intel, the LATEST driver is version .3345 and the driver that was installed was .3375. How come MS has newer drivers than Intel? They're crap! Can't Intel just pass this latest driver to MS and tell them that's the only stable driver? Most people just rely on Windows updates instead of going to the vendor's page and downloading the drivers for each hardware component.