Thinkpads Forum

I just upgraded from a T42 to T61p.

The volume controls (as far as I can tell) on the T42 were hardware volume controls. No matter what was going on with my computer, I could easily control the volume.

Now, with my T61p, the volume controls appear to be software based. This sucks. What this means is, when I have music playing, if my computer is busy doing something (or a process is hogging the CPU), I can't turn down the volume.

So I sitting there on the train with music blasting, trying to mute the stupid laptop, and it takes a few seconds to respond until the CPU has time to process my request.


Is there any way to change this to the way it is on the T42, where the controls are hardware volume controls, not software ones?

funny, i just wrote another topic about that.

i tried this possibly fix: deinstall your current hotkey driver and than download one for a t4x. i think it might work, you can install it. the problem i have is that i cannot deinstall the old one, although i deinstalled it correctly...

prob. it works with you...

Hi,

Same here with my T61. Previously I owned a T60 with XP Pro, the volume control buttons were hardware based. Now with my T61 and Vista, it's software based. Very annoying.

I thought it's because of the Vista driver, but not sure. Or perhaps because of the T61 BIOS. I don't think the hardware mixer is missing in T61, since I believe they're technically similar (I have T61 14" non-wide, which is the same dimension with my previous T60)

snkscore, what is your OS?

I ordered the laptop with Vista, but quickly "upgraded" to windows XP pro.

I realized that most new laptops these days have software based volume based control. It doesn't matter what OS you use. On XP, the volume controls are still software based. I was a little [censored] about this, but later on, I got used to it.

or it is the driver which is bad programmed, have you tried to install a t4x driver ?

Have you tried installing the T4x drivers? How can I get it?

Admin Message: Petty sniping has been deleted.

@punya: you can get the driver from the normal lenovo site. just choose t4x machine....