T21 No Sound Issue

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Jarvis · #1 Post by **Jarvis** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:30 am

I have a T21 laptop which I bought used. I recently installed Windows 2000 on it and the sounds stopped working (I used to have Ubuntu 5.10 and later Kubuntu 6.06 installed and the sounds worked at least sometimes on them).

The problem is that the sound card driver is installed ok and Windows doesn't report any problems on that. Everything with sound (e.g. videos and MP3s) plays ok but I just can't hear anything. And yes, I've checked and double-checked that the speakers are not muted, neither from Windows nor the grey speaker buttons. However, I can hear the annoying PC speaker beeps when installing non-WHQL drivers (when Windows gives warning about drivers being non-WHQL). I've also tried using headphones in case the speaker itself was broken. It didn't help.

I have the newest BIOS version (1.16 if I recall correctly) installed. I've removed and installed the sound card drivers several times. I've tried the driver found on IBM's site and I also found a newer one on the manufacturer's site. Neither one worked. I've tried the default BIOS settings and some settings of my own. I also tried to disable the network adapter as some post here said NIC could cause conflicts with the sound card (Windows didn't report any, though). This attempt was useless, too.

I'm getting a bit desperate. Any help is appreciated.

#2 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:56 am

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Try right-clicking the speaker icon in the system tray and select "Open Volume Control". That should open up a larger window with sliders for each sound input/ouput. There are also mute buttons for each. Check the "Wave" and "CD" sections. You may find the solution to your problem there.

This is a Windows property and not something unique to thinkpads.

NS · #3 Post by NS » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:13 am

rkawakami wrote:Try right-clicking the speaker icon in the system tray and select "Open Volume Control". That should open up a larger window with sliders for each sound input/ouput. There are also mute buttons for each. Check the "Wave" and "CD" sections. You may find the solution to your problem there.

http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitledxg6.gif

Jarvis · #4 Post by **Jarvis** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:24 am

As I said, I've checked the Windows settings, including those you suggested. (Ok, maybe it was a bit unclear on my first post but that's what I meant, sorry). Everything is unmuted. And yes, I've noticed that every time I reinstall the sound card drivers, everything becomes muted by default.

#5 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:32 am

Have you checked the Device Manager to see if there's any problems with the Sound entries? If that's clean, do you have a port replicator? Sound output should be available there as well. This would bypass the headphone jack, if that's the real cause of your problem.

edit: You may also try downloading a copy of PC Doctor for DOS as it has a basic test for the sound card. You can get a copy either for floppy disks or CDROM from this link:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 478#210478

Jarvis · #6 Post by **Jarvis** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:44 am

rkawakami wrote:Have you checked the Device Manager to see if there's any problems with the Sound entries?

Yes I have. Everything there seems to be ok.

rkawakami wrote:If that's clean, do you have a port replicator? Sound output should be available there as well. This would bypass the headphone jack, if that's the real cause of your problem.

I don't have a port replicator but I don't think this problem is related to the headphone jack as the internal speaker doesn't work either (except for system beeps). Maybe I'll try that PC Doctor next.

By the way, I found this older thread where someone had the same problem but in WinXP. Apparently this guy had to replace his motherboard: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=4020

#7 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:46 am

From your descriptions so far, I would have to agree that it's probably something on the system board, although I like to go through all of the "cheap" solutions first! Have a nice afternoon over there; it's 3am here and I'm off to sleep....

Jarvis · #8 Post by **Jarvis** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:50 am

PC Doctor didn't have much to say. The internal speaker seems to work (at least I got a lot of noise out of it!) and PCI information says there's an audio device in bus 0, device 5, function 0, which is the same thing Device Manager says. The System information section said something like "PCI sound card is present but not configured" which I found a bit weird but I don't know if it's relevant.

Maybe it is some kind of HW problem, then. Although the sounds have worked under Linux (it played music and stuff) but that was some months ago. There was a long period when I didn't use the laptop, or didn't need sounds, so I didn't pay attention on whether or not the sounds still worked before I installed Windows so it's possible something has occurred since the last time I used sounds.

roncoinc · #9 Post by **roncoinc** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:42 am

i have the exact same problem on my T22 !! and i mean EXACT !.
done the same stuff also,when i hit the volume control from mute to volume up i can hear a "click" in the headphones.
how about somebody with working sound list the driver and version etc.?? evrything i read on the net talks about sound blaster,is this the same as the crystal audio hardware keeps finding ? tnx for any help..

#10 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:08 am

Here is the driver that the T21 and T22 is supposed to use with Windows 2000. Be sure and follow the installation instructions. You may want to run SFC /scannow from a command prompt to verify that all the microsoft system files are in place. Another thing to check is to run dxdiag from a command prompt to check DirectX files.

Audio driver for Windows 2000 - ThinkPad A2*, T2*

Jarvis · #11 Post by **Jarvis** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:15 am

GomJabbar wrote:Here is the driver that the T21 and T22 is supposed to use with Windows 2000. ...

That's the driver I've been installing and re-installing several times. I've also tried one by version number 5.12.01.3040 which probably is newer than the one on IBM's site (5.12.01.3037a). That made no difference. I've followed the instructions and everything went ok. Everything in Windows seems normal but still no sounds can be heard.

A few minutes ago I tried manually setting new IRQs for the PCI devices in BIOS. The default setting was 11 for every device (marked like A, B, C, D in BIOS so I have no idea which is which). I put every setting to "auto-select" which had no effect. Then I manually put different values to each, which had no effect. Windows seems not to care about these settings, as every device has an IRQ of 9 in Device Manager regardless of what I set in BIOS.

EDIT: Ah yes, and DXDiag didn't reveal any new information. According to it everything is ok.

roncoinc · #12 Post by **roncoinc** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:47 am

thank you for the thoughtfullness....did everything,from bios update to dxdiag,with no sound even from dxdiag test..this laptop is new to me and was supposed to be fully functional..i am restoring the original win 98 from the preload to check it it out ..

roncoinc · #13 Post by **roncoinc** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:01 pm

well,,win98 restored and everything perfect as far as the machine thinks..all back loaded with all the good ibm stuff..as it came from the factory....
STILL NO SOUND !!....pc squeeker works but thats all...went to best buy and bought a usb sound card..may be the only way out,must be dead on board sound card...now to find a way to wire a jack to the speakers to plug into the usb sound card...

roncoinc · #14 Post by **roncoinc** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:04 am

now this is getting more interesting...the turtle beach usb sound card says it will work with win98se but it wont install,,OS not supported !..
now i notice a small crack in the case corner by the sound card in/out plugs..i think it may have been dropped and thats prob the reason sound dont work..i suppose it's worth a shot to take it apart and look..

T21 No Sound Issue

T21 No Sound Issue

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