I have only a basic user level of experience.

I have a two year old 17" HP laptop and have been using a 12 foot HDMI cable to connect to my six month old 42" Vizio HDTV.

I have been pleased with watching movies being transferred from the computer to the TV.

Then suddenly, the audio levels began to drop and I had to keep increasing the tv's sound level. This happened quickly, in a period of a couple days. Now there is no sound like the way it originally was.

Now when I have the HDMI hooked up, and do a sound test for my online conferencing...the test beep comes out fine on the television.

This happened four weeks ago. A very recent development is that my sound light which comes on when the audio is off, always stays on now. It works fine, but am curious if this is related to my HDMI sound problem to my television.

(Frankly the sound to the Television is my biggest concern... unless something drastic is developing with the laptop.)