Thinkpads Forum

A friend gave me a 600E with a dead backlight on Saturday, and a short bit of soldering to reattach the CCFL connector to the inverter board later and it was up again.

Anyway, once I installed Windows 98 on it I noticed something different. This 600E has a MIDI synthesizer. The other one that I have, currently running XP, although previously running Windows 98, does not and can only use a software synth or pass MIDI on to something external. The 'old' one, sans synth, is type 2645-3AU while the one with the synth is 2645-4AU. Has anyone else noticed this difference? Also, I must say that the synth is quite impressive, especially for being built into a laptop. Go IBM!

A little bit of Google research suggests that your "old" 2645-3AU may not have the MIDI enabled. You can do this using the PS2.EXE utility per this:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installat ... inkPad_600

You can download a copy of the PS2.EXE program from here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS013835

Thanks, I will have to check that out when I get home. I was just pleasantly surprised to find it on the 4AU unit, and amazed at how good the MIDI is compared to the sondfont synth the SoundBlaster Live! card I have in another machine is. Reverb!

Okay, I enabled midiport but it seems like XP doesn't support it. Oh well. Thanks though

IIRC, didn't one, or several, of the 76x models also have this?

Yes, it looks like the 770X and 770Z have the same sound chips. Also, strange thing. I can get the Crystal SoundFusion synth to work, but for some reason the Crystal FM Synthesis does not work anymore (talking about the 4AU thinkpad here.) I reinstalled Windows 98 twice and it still won't make any noise when I select the FM synth...

Are you certain no 76x model had it too? I've used virtually every 76x, and I seem to remember something like this. I just can't remember which, and have none at the moment.

I'm just going by thinkwiki. According to that the 770X, 770Z, and 600E share the same audio chips.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/CS4239
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/CS4610

Oh, and here are some Doom midis played on the 600E and recorded with my desktop
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3570226/d_e3m3 ... Fusion.mp3
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3570226/d_inte ... Fusion.mp3

I still can't get the Crystal FM Synthesis to work, any ideas?

I never used the MIDI Synth on those machines, but I have some vague recollection that under Win98 the Midi synth is somehow connected to whether or not you have your game port set for a game port device or for a Midi device. Or that they require some kind of IRQ fiddling to get them to work correctly. Or that there was some conflict in some sets of hardware due to problems with a Wave Modem of some kind. And, as Ray suggests, there may be something in your BIOS that has disabled the MIDI port. Is it possible that any of those things might be affecting your install?

Not sure why the MIDI would work at one point and then stop working, but I had that experience with sound on my 600X machines as well. The Crystal SoundFusion drivers have an uninstall process you can run to clear all your drivers out and then you can install fresh.

Check out these default device manager listings:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... SHY-44HSRS
and
http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/ac46.htm

The "MPU-401" device seems to be disabled by default. That is the MIDI device, right?

Check the setting in our Thinkpad Configuration software in Windows - this provides you with some additional features for enabling/disabling various devices under Windoze, just like the PS2 program does under DOS, but with a GUI and a few more options. Definitely install whatever version of the Thinkpad Configuration software exists to match your machine and operating system if you haven't already.

Ahhh, the wonders of Win 98 and the IRQ system...it is a bit of a cloudy blur for me, but I recall that under Win98, this may even be affected by how you have set up your UltraBay - the assigned IRQs will change depending on if you have it set up to hot swap or not, and whether or not you have an additional IDE device or hard drive installed there vs a CD/DVD drive, which does not require an IRQ. And everytime you make a change there, it has a bit of a cascading effect on the rest of your IRQs by causing them to shift around as well, and sometimes create new conflicts where none existed. The Thinkpad Configuration utility can help identify such conflicts if they exist.

Phil.

From the MIDI tab in multimedia options I have three options. The first is the "Crystal FM Synthesis". This is the one that won't work. I had it working at one point somehow, but now it's having issues. Next is "Crystal SoundFusion(tm)", the sample-based synth. Finally, there is the "Crystal(tm) External MIDI", which routes MIDI out the gameport (in the dock.) My device manager shows the same devices as the picture on the lenovo site. I don't have any IRQ conflicts. Any ideas?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3570226/tp600midi01.png

Well, I found out some more information. It turns out that the wavetable-based synth might not be a true hardware-based synthesizer, but according to the CS4610 datasheet it's located in the PCI audio chip. The FM synth is located in the ISA audio chip, the CS4239. The samples for the CS4610 are stored on the hard drive, although I'm not sure how they get to the chip or if the chip does any of the synthesis at all. I still can't get the FM synthesis to work.