No 5.1 speaker config

What does your amp manual say about setting the input type? Is it automatic or do you have to select the type of compression? Your amp specs listed a lot of compatibilities but I couldn't find a manual. Also, I'm not sure Catalyst provides Dolby compression. I would think that's provided by your graphics card.

I would take the amp out of the equation until you get your HDMI working. Plug it directly into the TV input and select that plug as your TV input. (If you haven't already.)

Also, clicking on the Advanced tab in Properties window should allow you to select the compression.

I've never used the HDMI on my HD 5850 to try this. But I'm in agreement with carwiz that Windows will probably see nothing more than "stereo" in the configuration window.

I expect that the HDMI setting in the BIOS disables the SPDIF on the motherboard itself and allows then the signal to be taken by the video card and passed through it (via the AMD HDMI Audio Device you see in the Playback Devices window) to whatever device you have the card connected to.

So the HDMI output from your video card carries up to 8 channels of audio, plus the video signal. It should be sending these signals to your receiver and work if the receiver is setup properly for it.

I would try carwiz's suggestion of connecting directly to the TV first to check that both the audio and video signal from the video card are working.

so i was able to get this fixed. i found that i had to to an auto sound setup on the receiver. basically the reciever just checks to make sure you have 5.1 setup. once i did this the computer was able to identify that there was a 5.1 receiver hooked up to it and it works fine now