Thinkpads Forum

Copied from the hardware forum...

Can someone tell me if I can use this card in my T60 2007-76U?

I want to use the ThinkPad to record my vinyl LP's onto CD's.

Thank you in advance.

Bud

You should be able to as I can't think of any immediate problems you might encounter with it. Also, please don't double post.

christopher_wolf wrote:You should be able to as I can't think of any immediate problems you might encounter with it. Also, please don't double post.

Thanks, I guess my question should have been will my T60 accept a PC card?

Also, should I have deleted the post on the other forum (if possible)? After I posted there it became apparent that it was on the wrong forum.

Yes, you have two PC Card slots. One is a CardBus PCMCIA slot, the other is an ExpressCard slot, much like the configuration on a T43. Usually, the ExpressCard slot ejector is marked with an 'x' while the regular CardBus slot is marked with an 'o'; while the Express Card slot is not backward compatible with the previous PCMCIA cards, you can indeed use the ExpressCard slot.

Don't worry, I will take care of the other post.

Thank you, I've ordered the new audio card.

I am considering buying one at the moment, but mainly for ouput purposes.

I would use it with a Klipsch Promedia 2.1 to listen to my music (stereo) and watch dvd.

Would it be a real difference from the HD Audio chip ? And this difference, is it worth the extra money ?

I have a desktop computer with a Sound Blaster sound card. I listened to a CD on both the desktop and the Thinkpad using headphones. There is no question that the Sound Blaster sounded much better.

I am buying the card because I'll be spending a lot of time recording LP's and I want to get the best reproduction possible.

BTW, I have a fine Altec Lansing speaker system connected to the desktop and the sound is terrific.

I am confused !

You have two computers with two sound blaster cards right ? Both are audigy ? And the notebook one is better than the desktop one ?

By the way, which headphones are you using, I will probably keep using my PX200 before I make a real investment (like a Sennheiser HD650).

Sorry if I misunderstood some part of you answer

Sorry for the confusion. I have a T60 with the standard sound support as shipped by Lenovo and I have a desktop in which I've added a Creative Technolgies sound card.

When I compare the two using simple ear pods, the desktop sounds much better. That's why I've ordered a new Creative Audigy 2ZS PCMCIA Card for the Thinkpad.

I am not so much interested in using headphones with the Thinkpad as I am using the Thinkpad to record my LP collection so I can put it on CD's/DVD's. I don't feel the standard sound function of the Thinkpad is good enough for this purpose.

When I do the recording sessions, I'll be using Stax electrostatic headphones driven by a Stax class A headphone amplifier.

I'm using the Thinkpad to do the recording because I can take it to the stereo system. I can't do that with the desktop.

I use a Audigy 2ZS Notebook Card in my T60p, primarily for headphone listening. It's excellent.
There was a serious problem in that it was not possible to remove the card without stopping (or crashing) the computer. The workaround was to disable the onboard soundcard. But then all the problems suddenly disappeared, presumably remedied by one of the Windows updates!

Anthony S wrote:I use a Audigy 2ZS Notebook Card in my T60p, primarily for headphone listening. It's excellent.
There was a serious problem in that it was not possible to remove the card without stopping (or crashing) the computer. The workaround was to disable the onboard soundcard. But then all the problems suddenly disappeared, presumably remedied by one of the Windows updates!

Did you get a chance to compare the on board sound card with the Audigy? I'm sure the improvement must be noticeable.

Amazon shipped my card today so I can try it myself in a few days.

Did you get a chance to compare the on board sound card with the Audigy? I'm sure the improvement must be noticeable.

The onboard soundcard in my T60p is pretty good, better than on most notebooks. The Audigy is way better, though. Worth the $$$

Of course, good speakers or headphones are a prerequisite.

I used one of these for a while, before the custom external speaker jack stopped functioning. The output through the headphone jack sounded rather low quality, and I didn't want to risk damage to my notebook, just in case there was some electrical problem in the card. So I switched to an Echo Audio Indigo IO card, which had much better sound quality, in my opinion. Afterwards, that card started falling apart for some reason, so that the sound kept disappearing. Eventually I switched to an old USB Griffin iMic I had gotten my dad, but I stopped listening to music on my laptop, using my MP3 player instead.

This was a Dell Latitude D610, with audio quality so bad it makes your ears bleed, so I was using both cards constantly, which may be why they failed so quickly.

It's weird the Indigo failed : it's made for audio professional who use it 8h a day for work... Anyway, could you be more precise on the difference between the two soundcards ?

The Echo Indigo has an internal amp for the headphones, does it make a real difference compared to the Creative card ?

P.S : by the way, we live in the same town. Are you a UIUC student ?

i have compared my T60's sound max hd and my desktop's sound blaster audigy 1, no doubt that sound max hd beat audigy...with altec 5021 THX speaker, and sennheiser monitor head phone.

zouav wrote:It's weird the Indigo failed : it's made for audio professional who use it 8h a day for work... Anyway, could you be more precise on the difference between the two soundcards ?

The Echo Indigo has an internal amp for the headphones, does it make a real difference compared to the Creative card ?

P.S : by the way, we live in the same town. Are you a UIUC student ?

Yeah, undergrad in CS.

I actually didn't compare the two together sound-wise much, since I stopped using the Creative card when I got the Indigo. I just thought the sound quality was nicer on the Indigo -- very clean, where if I remember correctly, the Creative sounded comparatively muddy.

Is anyone aware of a conflict that might be causing my BSOD? Do I have to disable Soundmax before the installation?

Thanks

I had a problem last year that I could not safely remove the Audigy card without BSOD. Correspondence with Creative support produced the workaround of disabling Soundmax before inserting the Audigy card. But then one day all problems disappeared, presumably as a result of some software update, I guess a Windows update because a colleague had the same experience with an HP notebook.

So first make sure you have all Windows updates installed. And, of course, the latest Audigy drivers etc. Otherwise, I found Creative support to be very helpful.