No sound on Thinkpad T41

[loopyloops]

I just reinstalled the os on my T41 for my wife, so she can have and use the comp. with a clean start, and for the life of me, I don't understand why I get no sound. Nothing's muted, the device manager says Soundmax is enbled - I'm stumped. Any help/ideas would be appreciated - thanks!

[GomJabbar]

There are the mutes in Windows Volume Control. There is also the hardware mute and volume controls above the keyboard. Make sure the hardware volume control is set to maximum and the Windows Volume Control (double-click on the speaker icon in the Notification Area to the bottom right) does not have anything muted and that all the volume sliders are moved up.

Note that different sounds require different drivers. Playing a midi file is different than a wave file, or than playing a music CD. Also CD's can have digital playback or analog playback (see the Properties tab for your optical drive in Device Manager).

Try headphones in the headphone jack. Maybe you have a problem with the jack.

Go to Device Manager and check: View > Show hidden devices. Do you see any yellow exclaimation marks or red X's?

You said SoundMax is enabled. Did you install Windows from the Product Recovery Discs or use a regular Windows Install CD? If it was a regular Windows Install CD, did you also install the IBM driver for SoundMax? Also, did you install the Intel Chipset drivers? Software and Device Drivers - ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p

Run Windows Update and see if anything shows up.

You can also run System File Checker. Choose Start > Run > and type in sfc /scannow.

[loopyloops]

There are the mutes in Windows Volume Control. There is also the hardware mute and volume controls above the keyboard. Make sure the hardware volume control is set to maximum and the Windows Volume Control (double-click on the speaker icon in the Notification Area to the bottom right) does not have anything muted and that all the volume sliders are moved up.

Note that different sounds require different drivers. Playing a midi file is different than a wave file, or than playing a music CD. Also CD's can have digital playback or analog playback (see the Properties tab for your optical drive in Device Manager).

Try headphones in the headphone jack. Maybe you have a problem with the jack.

Go to Device Manager and check: View > Show hidden devices. Do you see any yellow exclaimation marks or red X's?

You said SoundMax is enabled. Did you install Windows from the Product Recovery Discs or use a regular Windows Install CD? If it was a regular Windows Install CD, did you also install the IBM driver for SoundMax? Also, did you install the Intel Chipset drivers? Software and Device Drivers - ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p

Run Windows Update and see if anything shows up.

You can also run System File Checker. Choose Start > Run > and type in sfc /scannow.

Than you soooo much. I reinstalled from the re-install (recovery partition) from the hdd.

Turns out, the only problem I was having was the controls above the keyboard - and now I'm set -thanks again!!

[loopyloops]

since you mentioned it, if I ran sfc /scannow in the future, on my other machines, it usually asks for the Windows disc - can I use any Windows disc as this comp. doesn't come with one - like my media center disc from my gen2 xps?

Scratch that - it seems to work and not ask for a disc - how strange...does it somehow know where the info is on the hdd?

[GomJabbar]

Turns out, the only problem I was having was the controls above the keyboard - and now I'm set -thanks again!!

Be consoled by the fact that you are not the only user this has happened to. I have read several posts over the past year or so where the same thing happened.

since you mentioned it, if I ran sfc /scannow in the future, on my other machines, it usually asks for the Windows disc - can I use any Windows disc as this comp. doesn't come with one - like my media center disc from my gen2 xps?

Scratch that - it seems to work and not ask for a disc - how strange...does it somehow know where the info is on the hdd?

Everything that is on the Windows disc, IBM/Lenovo put on your hard drive. In fact, you can create a Windows install disc from your hard drive. See sticky at top of Windows OS forum.